Harry Reid

The wife of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer and is undergoing  treatment, including chemotherapy, in Washington, D.C., the senator's office confirmed Friday.    Landra Reid, 71, and the senator are high school sweethearts, and have been married for 52 years. The senator is expected to continue his work as majority leader. "Senator and Mrs. Reid appreciate the thoughts and concerns expressed during this time,” said a statement from Reid's office.

Senate leaders have averted, for now, a showdown over a group of President Obama's judicial nominees, reaching a tentative agreement that would allow the chamber to pick up the pace on confirmations. The truce comes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took the unusual move of trying to force a vote Wednesday on 17 nominees who had bipartisan backing but faced opposition from some Republicans trying to stall the president's picks for the federal courts. Under the agreement, the Senate will instead work to confirm 14 judicial nominees by May 7 - not as many as Democrats sought, but a schedule that would require about three confirmation votes a week while the Senate is in session, more than has been the norm.

Add Sen. Harry Reid to the list of prominent Democrats who aren’t rushing to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s side. Asked at his weekly news conference about the Twitter-tarred congressman, Reid replied, “I know Congressman Weiner. I wish there was some way I can defend him, but I can't. The Senate majority leader, a Democrat from Nevada, demurred when asked if the New Yorker should resign, saying, “I'm not here to defend Weiner.” Reid was asked what advice he would give Weiner.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will unveil a proposal Monday to extend a payroll tax cut for 160 million American workers, a Democratic ally said. Interviewed on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Reid would announce the details of a plan that would extend a cut in the payroll taxes used to pay for Social Security. Conrad would not reveal the specifics but said "it will be paid for" and represent a compromise between the dueling plans the Senate rejected last week.

Sen. Harry Reid strolled into Nevada Democratic Party headquarters just before lunch Tuesday to thank volunteers busily phoning voters who had yet to cast their ballots. He handed a small loaf of banana nut bread wrapped in yellow cellophane to Ruth Fuggins, though she wasn't exactly sure why. Fuggins, a 66-year-old retired bank supervisor, has been volunteering for the Democrat's campaign for about a year, but doesn't know Reid personally. Regardless, she was touched by the somewhat awkward gesture: Reid isn't a show boater and Fuggins appreciated that.

Reid's opening statement Finally! It's the closest, and most closely watched, race of the midterm elections, and now the long-awaited debate between the two virtually tied Senate candidates. This race has become a proxy for what is happening all over the country -- incumbents facing insurgents. In this case, it's Reid, the leader of Senate Democrats who is seeking his fifth term, versus Republican Angle, a former state legislator and darling of the "tea party" movement. Mitch Fox, host of Nevada Week in Review, is moderating in the studio of Vegas PBS. The candidates are standing at podiums.

Tripping over tongues Re "Reid's indelicate remarks also carry a lot of truth," Column, and "Remarks from past may hurt Reid's future," Jan. 11 I don't know what all the fuss is about -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was just spouting what he believes is the truth. An African American friend, who came from a time and place in which racism was not only practiced but accepted, told me that during the racially tense 1960s, the only white guy he trusted to speak the truth was then-segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

Is this the gaffe that will haunt Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? The Nevada Democrat -- who, over the years, has called Alan Greenspan a hack, Washington tourists smelly and President George W. Bush a liar -- was pummeled by Republicans on Sunday for impolitic comments about President Obama's potential for winning the White House. In their book "Game Change," authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann say Reid described then-candidate Obama as a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect" whom many voters would embrace.

Rahm Emanuel was agitated. With only seven weeks until Christmas, the opportunity to pass healthcare legislation seemed to be fading. The White House chief of staff feared that if the Senate left for the holiday without passing a bill, President Obama's top domestic priority would wither as lawmakers turned to other concerns next year. Democratic senators and administration officials gathered in a conference room outside Majority Leader Harry Reid's Capitol office. Emanuel wanted to know: Was there a chance the chamber could still act in time?

Well, now we for sure know why Nevada Sen. Harry "I Did Too Smile Once Back in High School" Reid is calling in the Big Guy for a grandiose fundraiser on Tuesday. A new statewide poll of 625 Nevadans confirms previous research that the four-term Democrat is not well-liked. In fact, he's downright disliked. Fully half the respondents think of him unfavorably. Only 38% think of him positively; 11% didn't care, according to the survey by Mason-Dixon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says Republicans are being “led like puppets by Grover Norquist,” the anti-tax activist and keeper of a pledge that binds nearly all Republican lawmakers to a promise not to raise taxes. Reid made the remark to reporters Tuesday as he complained about Republicans' refusal to raise taxes to pay for the president's jobs bill or to lower the deficit. As the fight over the deficit intensifies, and a deadline for a super committee deal nears, Norquist has increasingly become a punching bag on Capitol Hill.

The Senate plans to vote on the first component of President Obama's jobs plan -- $35 billion to save the jobs of public school teachers and first-responders -- possibly as soon as this week.      It seems Democrats are finally operating from the same political playbook. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority leader, made the announcement Monday as Obama embarked on his three-day jobs bus tour. "We're going to do our utmost to do this as quickly as we can," Reid told reporters.

A procedural cold war that has simmered all year in the Senate escalated into a full-blown confrontation late Thursday, upending Senate rules and halting final approval of an otherwise bipartisan bill to punish China and other countries believed to be undervaluing their currencies. The showdown set a precedent in the wonkish world of Senate procedure: It slaps greater restrictions on the rights of the minority party to amend legislation. After two hours of jousting, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

The wife of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer and is undergoing  treatment, including chemotherapy, in Washington, D.C., the senator's office confirmed Friday.    Landra Reid, 71, and the senator are high school sweethearts, and have been married for 52 years. The senator is expected to continue his work as majority leader. "Senator and Mrs. Reid appreciate the thoughts and concerns expressed during this time,” said a statement from Reid's office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the first appointees to a congressional super-committee charged with tackling the federal deficit, but the Democratic choices offer few signs that the panel can resolve the partisan stalemate that has only hardened in Congress amid the nation's worsening economic outlook. Reid tapped Sen. Patty Murray of Washington to co-chair the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, and also named Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Breaking news: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced they had come to an agreement on a deal that would raise the debt limit and reduce the deficit. Speaking from the White House,President Obama acknowledged the "messy" fight over the nation's debt and deficits has "taken far too long," but thanked leaders for finding "their way toward compromise" and urged Americans to continue pressuring lawmakers until the deal is voted out of Congress.

As Nevadans streamed to the polls Tuesday morning, Sen. Harry Reid gave handshakes and hugs to volunteers phone-banking in a Las Vegas campaign office, which was down the street from an apartment complex touting its "Recession Special!" The embattled Democrat was notably relaxed, considering his battle with Republican Sharron Angle has been so filled with mud-slinging that a radio station Tuesday dubbed the pair "Dirty Harry" and "Psycho Sharron. " Dressed in a button-down shirt and khaki pants, Reid joked about being scheduled to serve the volunteers doughnuts, a box of which had been opened in a different room.

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid came home recently to address the Nevada Legislature, a small but vocal band of Republican protesters gathered at the state Capitol. They waved signs, razzed Democrats and marched outside. But the group fell silent when asked the chances of ousting Reid at the polls next year. "It's going to be tough," demonstrator Carol Howell, 65, finally said. Inside, Reid illustrated one reason why. Speaking to a bipartisan group of lawmakers, he touted hundreds of millions of dollars headed for Nevada under the economic stimulus legislation he helped push through Congress.

Efforts to reach a last-minute deal to stave off a potentially disastrous federal default appeared to make progress late Saturday as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called off a scheduled 1 a.m. Sunday test vote and declared himself newly "optimistic. " Reid (D-Nev.) scheduled a new vote for noon Sunday, saying he wanted to give the parties more time to negotiate. Talks were underway at the White House, he said, and progress was being made toward the Democratic demand for a long-term debt limit increase that would carry the government through the end of 2012.