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My dear friend Tim Mitchell was an institution. As a trusted aide in the United States Senate, he -- and his sidekick Gary Myrick -- was as essential to me as one of my fellow Senate colleagues. He helped make the Senate function appropriately, and he was integral in helping us pass many pieces of legislation. He was fair and was never pushed around. I will always remember all the good he did for me and the country.
Tim accomplished very much, but I know the role he most care...d about in life was to be a good father and husband.
I talked to Alicia and expressed my commitment and love for Tim. I expressed to her that the beginning of baseball season will not be the same without him. That was our bond -- every day, we talked about baseball.
I know Alicia and Ben will always remember the goodness of Tim Mitchell. And I will forever be grateful that Tim was part of my life.
Senator Harry Reid shared The Obama White House's post.
After working for decades to protect Gold Butte’s breathtaking landscapes and cultural treasures, I was overjoyed to hear the news from President Obama. The splendor of Gold Butte will now be protected for all of us. It will be enjoyed for generations to come.
President Obama is a courageous man. I could not be more grateful to him and his team for working with me to make this happen, and for everything he has done to protect public lands in Nevada. By designating Gold Butte ...a national monument, President Obama has shown once again why he is one of greatest environmental presidents in American history.
This is personal for me. I still remember the wonder I felt traveling from dusty Searchlight to stunning Piute Springs as a child – it seemed like the entire world had opened up to me. Everything I’ve done for the environment since has stemmed from those early experiences, and this designation is a wonderful capstone to a career of fighting to protect Nevada’s pristine landscapes. Protecting Gold Butte ensures that generations of people will continue to have the opportunity to experience Nevada’s natural beauty.
Today, President Obama announced the Bears Ears and Gold Butte National Monuments, protecting over 1 million acres of sacred sites, scenic vistas, and important... natural and cultural resources in the desert landscapes of southeastern Utah and southern Nevada. To date, the President has protected more land and water than any other president in history. Today’s actions build on that progress: go.wh.gov/1o9LYQ
See MoreAs I have said before, Donald Trump's calculated decision to appeal to the worst side of human nature led to him running a campaign based on hatred and fear. This type of neofascism has long resided on the fringes of world politics, but it never had a serious following in America. Donald Trump changed all that. I have called on Trump to reject hatred and tell his supporters that every person in America has the right to pursue the American Dream, but he has chosen not to do ...so.
Donald Trump’s election and coming inauguration are forcing Americans to make tough decisions. Many Americans, who would normally want to celebrate democracy during the inauguration of a new president, feel they cannot do so without also endorsing Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. Recently, Jan Chamberlin, a singer with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, resigned her membership rather than perform at the inauguration, in order to completely disassociate herself with the Trump presidency. In a clearly worded letter, Jan explained that she could not be seen as endorsing tyranny and fascism.
I understand completely the difficult choice Jan had to make. She loves the choir, she loves to sing, she loves to promote the values she holds dear, and she loves her church – the same church that Trump’s top advisor, Steve Bannon, mocked when he ridiculed Mitt Romney’s sons. But Jan refuses to be part of the wave of hatred unleashed by Donald Trump. She should not be castigated or repudiated for acting on her sincere beliefs.
In the Trump era, many Americans will have to make equally difficult decisions. I admire and support the people like Jan who reject tyranny and fascism and do what they can to stand up for what is right.
Senator Harry Reid added 4 new photos.
Yesterday, I was joined by BLM Director Neil Kornze, LACMA Director Michael Govan, and genius artist Michael Heizer for the signing of a conservation easement to protect the area containing Heizer’s grand modern art sculpture, City.
The signing of the easement is the first step in allowing public access to the sculpture and its full incorporation into Basin and Range National Monument – a 700,000-acre spread of land in Eastern Nevada designated as a monument in 2015 by President Obama.
City was described by The New York Times as “the most ambitious sculpture anyone has ever built, one of those audacious improbable American dreams at the scale of the West, conceived for the ages.” I hope the easement will ensure that Americans can enjoy it for generations to come.
I will miss working with you on a daily basis but I'll continue admiring from afar your passion, intellect, and fighting spirit.
I never in a million years thought that I was going to get involved in politics. I’d spent years teaching bankruptcy law, finance, and contracts. Then one eveni...ng in 2008 – just minutes before I was about to have a bunch of my students over for barbecue – my phone rang out of the blue. The caller was a soft spoken man who identified himself as “Harry Reid.” I could barely hear him. “Who?” I asked. “Um, Harry Reid. Majority Leader, US Senate.” Oh.
Senator Reid told me that the country was in crisis – and he wanted me to come to Washington to help provide some oversight of the Treasury Department’s handling of the bank bailout. I’d never met Harry Reid, and I wasn’t exactly sure what he was asking me to do. But the financial system was collapsing, and working families were getting crushed – so if Senator Reid asked me to help by mopping floors or licking envelopes, I would have said yes.
So I said yes, I came to Washington, and I jumped in as fast and as hard as I could. One fight led to the next, and here I am in the US Senate.
Harry Reid forever changed my life with that phone call. I wouldn’t be here without him.
It’s no surprise to me that Harry Reid was a boxer, because he’s one of the toughest fighters I know. For 30 years, he has fought his heart out for working families in Nevada and across this country in the United States Senate. In his own quiet but fierce way, he’s taught me – and so many others – what principled, unwavering leadership looks like. He has been a mentor to many of us, and a friend to many more.
Harry Reid is one of the very best, and I’m going to miss him. Thank you, Harry.
I cannot think of a better person with which to leave public service. Thank you, President Obama, for being the person you are.


The Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to reroute the Dakota Access oil Pipeline is a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux, who have been objecting to construction of this pipeline for more than two years. This is a momentous step toward correcting the course of a disgraceful history.
Yesterday’s decision will not make up for the past, but President Obama took a huge step to rectify a terrible wrong. Money, profits and not human dignity was the direction of the pipeline. The Ob...ama Administration changed that.
I admire the support of those who locked arms with the Standing Rock Sioux. Appropriately enough, these people called themselves ‘water protectors.’ Native Americans, politicians, entertainers and other celebrities were some of the water protectors.
I am gratified for the strength of the Standing Rock Sioux. Their ancestral burial grounds will remain protected and their water clean. I thank President Obama, his Administration, and the Army Corps of Engineers for their action.
My only hope is that the Trump Administration will not undo the justice that Americans Natives have finally received. We must continue to support the Standing Rock Sioux and help them protect their history, their land and their water.
The UNLV students who operate the school newspaper made the bold decision to change the name of their publication. To say I am proud of these students would be a huge understatement. This name change wasn’t easy. But these students were more interested in unifying the student body and rejecting hateful symbols of a racist and divisive past, rather than hiding behind tradition. Now it’s time for the university’s administration to do the right thing and get rid of the “rebel” mascot.
The Standing Rock Sioux are standing up for their land, their right to clean water, their right to clean air, and their history. They are not alone. Today, I join with the Standing Rock Sioux in calling for an alternate route for the pipeline’s completion.
The simple truth is that Indian tribes are exposed to more pollution than their fellow Americans. From South Dakota to Nevada, Native Americans are on the front lines of these environmental and public health catastrophes. T...o make matters worse, heavy polluting industries are fighting to return to the days of limitless pollution under Donald Trump.
What is happening at Standing Rock is about respect for people, where they build their homes and raise their families. The violence and aggression against the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota is a tragic example of the failure to respect people who have long-standing grievances for how they and their natural resources have been treated.
The Standing Rock Sioux’s protests of the Dakota Access pipeline has everything to do with a history of broken promises and institutionalized disregard for their rights on their own land, as well as the trust relationship between Indian tribes and the United States.
While most stakeholders want a speedy end to this situation, they must understand that overreaction to protesters, violence and disregard for our history undermines the likelihood of a mutually acceptable solution and rubs salt in already festering wounds.
Our nation’s Native American tribes are looking to the federal government for help, which they rarely have gotten. They want to believe that after centuries of wrongs, the United States will finally get it right.
Relocating the Dakota Access Pipeline to a more suitable area away from the Standing Rock reservation would be an easy and historic step in the right direction. For the sake of our country, I hope that happens.
I’ve called upon our President-elect to rise to the dignity of his office. I called upon Donald Trump to take responsibility for his rhetoric and his actions, to work to heal the wounds that he created. Our President-elect has chosen to do none of those things. Meanwhile, vile acts of hate and intimidation continue to occur all across America.
On Tuesday, I said that the Southern Poverty Law Center had reported 315 hate crime since the election. As of yesterday, that number ...jumped to 437. That’s a 40% increase in only two days. That’s startling.
For example, in Michigan, a Latino family awoke to find that someone has used boxes to form a wall blocking their driveway. The perpetrators left behind vulgar graffiti that denigrated Mexican Americans and praised Donald Trump for ‘taking back America.’
In Tennessee, two men returned home to find a threatening, homophobic note. Using gay slurs, the message told the men to go back where they came from. A folding knife with a picture of Donald Trump on the handle was stabbed through the paper.
There are hundreds of the same kinds of things happening, as we speak, around the country. These are sickening acts of hate, prejudice, and simple meanness. Our nation is looking at Donald Trump to do something. For the sake of the American people, I hope he will.
There were a number of bright spots on Election Day, but I have to say without any question the one for us was in Nevada. The Koch brothers came to the state and publicly said: “Reid has been hard on us and we're going to teach him a lesson.” In spite of all their untold wealth, they could not affect what we had built up over the years in Nevada.
Election Day was really a good day for our state. We rejected the divisive vision of America that some had, but we also enacted so...me important reforms.
In Nevada, we voted to have background checks. The National Rifle Association has spent millions of dollars trying to stop that. But we care more about keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people than catering to these special interests.
In Nevada, we also elected the first Latina senator in the history of the country in Catherine Cortez Masto. We elected Ruben Kihuen – a fine man, an immigrant – to the House of Representatives. Serving with Ruben and Catherine in the Congress is a woman by the name of Jacky Rosen who proved to be a tremendously talented candidate. And Dina Titus, who knows Nevada inside and out, is returning to the House for a fourth term.
Our state has a crop of incredibly talented leaders to stand up to a Trump administration and hold Republicans accountable. Nevada was able to deliver at a time when the stakes could not be any higher. I could not be prouder of that.
I have been in politics for five decades, and I have never seen anything like what we are seeing today. A man who lost the popular vote by more than two million votes is now the President-elect, and his election has sparked a wave of hate crimes across America.
We have a responsibility to be the voice of the millions of Americans sitting at home, afraid that they are unwelcome in Donald Trump’s America. If we fail to hold Trump accountable, we all bear a measure of responsib...ility for normalizing his behavior.
No matter how hard the rest of us work, the main responsibility lies with the man who inspired the fear. Healing the wounds he inflicted will take more than words. Talk is cheap and tweets are cheaper. Healing the wounds is going to take action.
So far, rather than healing these wounds, Trump’s actions have deepened them. In his first official act, Trump appointed a man who is seen as a champion of white supremacy as the #1 strategist in his White House.
By placing a champion of White Supremacists a step away from the Oval Office, what message does Trump send to America? It is certainly not a message of healing.
If Trump is serious about seeking unity, the first thing he should do is rescind his appointment of Steve Bannon. As long as a champion of racial division is a step away from the Oval Office, it will be impossible to take Trump’s efforts to heal the nation seriously.
So I say to Donald Trump: take responsibility. Rise to the dignity of the office instead of hiding behind your Twitter account. Show America that racism, bullying and bigotry have no place in your White House.
I have personally been on the ballot in Nevada for 26 elections and I have never seen anything like the reaction to the election completed last Tuesday. The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.
White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian A...mericans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.
I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics. Hispanic Americans who fear their families will be torn apart, African Americans being heckled on the street, Muslim Americans afraid to wear a headscarf, gay and lesbian couples having slurs hurled at them and feeling afraid to walk down the street holding hands. American children waking up in the middle of the night crying, terrified that Trump will take their parents away. Young girls unable to understand why a man who brags about sexually assaulting women has been elected president.
I have a large family. I have one daughter and twelve granddaughters. The texts, emails and phone calls I have received from them have been filled with fear – fear for themselves, fear for their Hispanic and African American friends, for their Muslim and Jewish friends, for their LBGT friends, for their Asian friends. I’ve felt their tears and I’ve felt their fear.
We as a nation must find a way to move forward without consigning those who Trump has threatened to the shadows. Their fear is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them. Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans. Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces.
If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.
If Trump wants to roll back tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.
In just a few days, Nevadans are poised to gut energy monopolies’ rigid power grabs and directly participate in the clean energy economy. Voting “yes” on energy choice will represent a seismic shift for America and the world — a momentous example of how the people can take down an outdated, special interest monopoly and choose the future they want for their state and their country.
https://thinkprogress.org/harry-reid-yes-on-energy-1f9beb05…
It is unacceptable that Latina women must work a full year and 10 months just to make what their white, non-Hispanic male coworkers make in one year alone. This goes against the very promise of our nation and serves as an unjust, immoral reality for too many women. We must work to ensure equal pay for equal work.
In Nevada, Latina women earn 53 cents for every dollar their fellow male workers make. Nationwide, they earn just 54 cents – less than any other racial or ethnic gro...up – for every dollar their male counterpart makes for doing the exact same work. This lifetime of wages lost is a persistent barrier that holds back Latina women and their families from reaching their dreams.
These women in Nevada and throughout the country deserve the hard-earned wages that they work for every day. They also deserve elected officials who fiercely advocate on their behalf. Sadly, too many Republicans – including those in Nevada’s congressional delegation – have repeatedly blocked Democrats’ attempts to pass legislation that would help right this wrong. Republicans have instead chosen to side with their anti-woman nominee, Donald Trump, and aren’t interested in fighting for equal pay. They own our country’s reprehensible wage gap, and it is shameful they haven’t lifted a finger to address it.
As we recognize Latina Equal Pay Day today, let us rededicate our efforts to building a future free of discrimination and injustice for all women. And let’s hold leaders accountable who fail to stand with women in this fight for equality.
My letter to FBI Director Comey
Dear Director Comey:
Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another. I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you m...ay have broken the law.
The double standard established by your actions is clear.
In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.
By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.
Moreover, in tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department. You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton.
As you know, a memo authored by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on March 10, 2016, makes clear that all Justice Department employees, including you, are subject to the Hatch Act. The memo defines the political activity prohibited under the Hatch Act as “activity directed towards the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.”
The clear double-standard established by your actions strongly suggests that your highly selective approach to publicizing information, along with your timing, was intended for the success or failure of a partisan candidate or political group.
Please keep in mind that I have been a supporter of yours in the past. When Republicans filibustered your nomination and delayed your confirmation longer than any previous nominee to your position, I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant.
With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.
Sincerely,
Senator Harry Reid





































