FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2015 file photo, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., accompanied by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Reid is announcing he will not seek re-election to another term. The 75-year-old Reid says in a statement issued by his office Friday that he wants to make sure Democrats regain control of the Senate next year and that it would be "inappropriate" for him to soak up campaign resources when he could be focusing on putting the Democrats back in power. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Republicans who might have hoped the decision by Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., not to run for re-election in 2016 could signal a more collegial relationship with Democrats should think again. His mostly likely successors, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., or Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are equally if not more partisan.
The Nevada senator, who narrowly squeaked by to win his last three elections and survived several ethics challenges, had become the face of Democratic Senate intransigence in the four years since Republicans captured the House in 2010. Increasingly, before his party lost the Senate in 2014, he blocked popular House bills from coming to the Senate floor and changed procedural rules on nominations to make it easier for White House selections to win approval.
Fortunately, with Reid's retirement, Republicans have a good shot to pick up his seat in 2016. The party swept to wins in every Nevada statewide office last year, picked up a U.S. House seat and won control of the legislature.
The former majority leader announced he would step down, not because he thought he might lose his race, but, valiantly, because he thought his race would consume campaign money that would be needed in other states to help Democrats regain control of the Senate.
Reid, often wrong in his various pronouncements, was never in doubt. He said, among other things, 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for a decade, the Iraq "surge is not accomplishing anything," "the [U.S.-Mexico] border is secure," "all of [the horror stories about Obamacare] are untrue," and "our system of government [has] a voluntary tax system."