Soft-spoken, sharp-tongued Sen. Harry Reid bids farewell

Nevada’s senior senator, retiring after more than three decades in the U.S. Senate and nearly a half-century in public life, gave his final speech on the Senate floor Thursday. Uncharacteristically long and unusually personal for the impatient, taciturn Reid, the address capped a career in which he rose from humble roots in rural Searchlight to become the most powerful politician Nevada has ever seen, or likely ever will see.

Soft-spoken but sharp-edged, Reid earned the undying love of Democratic partisans over the course of his Senate career for the victories he delivered for himself and his party. But those wins came at a cost: Reid is hated with an unusual passion by his political opponents, and he became a lightening rod during his years as Senate leader.

One reason? His ability to say nearly anything at a given moment in time, regardless of what he’s said previously. For Reid, there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only right now.

That’s why he could say, for example, in his farewell speech that, “I have no problem with coal. I’ve helped fund clean coal technology. One of my spending [bills] was Tracy Power Plant outside of Reno that was a clean coal plant. Except it didn’t work, so they had to go to another type of fuel. So I have nothing against coal.”

But in 2008, Reid said “coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, it’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world.” And in 2007 at one of his Clean Energy Summits, he said clean coal “doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as clean coal technology. … There is not a coal plant in America that is clean.”

Or the filibuster. In 2008, Reid pledged to maintain the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote. But after facing a record number of filibusters during the Obama years, Reid changed his stance and passed a new rule: simple majority votes for appointments to administration jobs and lower-court nominees.

On Thursday, Reid issued a final warning on the subject: “I do hope my colleagues are able to temper the use of the filibuster. Otherwise, it will be gone.”

Reid’s inconstant relationship with the press is directly proportional to the degree with which he agrees with what they’re writing. On Thursday, Reid quoted George Orwell to encourage reporters to “criticize and oppose” the leaders of our new “gilded age.”

But say something with which Reid disagrees, and it’s he who will criticize and oppose the Fourth Estate. (He told me in 2014 that a column exonerating Rep. Joe Heck from responsibility for holding up a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House made him want to vomit.)

All but the most willfully ignorant of Reid’s critics, however, will be forced to admit that he’s done much good for his home state of Nevada.

Rural Republicans may despise Reid, but he’s nonetheless stood in the way of efforts to reform federal mining laws that could cost companies doing business in Nevada big bucks. Reid’s influence has allowed Nevada to expand its freeways, enlarge its airport, preserve ancient fossils and get its first and only national park. He’s secured funds for the top aviation schools for the Air Force (at Nellis Air Force base in Las Vegas) and the Navy (at Fallon Naval Air Station in Northern Nevada).

Were it not for Reid’s persistent opposition, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository would be up and running today northwest of Las Vegas.

Legacy seekers are already asking how Reid will be remembered. But savvy political watchers are wondering about a more immediate question. Reid may be out of the Senate, but he’s not gone from the scene.

What will he do next?

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.