Majority Leader

With the pick of Caroline Kennedy as his ambassador to Japan , President Obama seems to be channeling an unlikely muse: Richard Nixon . Obama and Tricky Dick are generally thought to have little in common. But on ambassadorships, the two presidents seem quite sympatico. Our pals over at the University of Virginia's Miller Center , whose scholars are transcribing and annotating all the secret White House tapes, noted a parallel between Obama's selection of Kennedy, a well-known former first daughter, and Nixon's attempted...

We fear that the March 29 news article " The Jobs Act falls short " may have left readers with an incomplete view of the impact of the bipartisan Jobs Act and its potential to improve the economy. While all of us who supported the law want to see even more initial public offerings (IPOs) created through the streamlined process it establishes, the record to date is compelling. According to Ernst and Young, of the 87 companies that filed IPO registrations from last April to December, 74 percent of them did so as Emerging...

I grew up on a farm in central Michigan. We raised crops and fed cattle. My aspiration at that time was to go to Michigan State to study agriculture. After a couple of changes in direction, I ended up with a degree in agricultural economics. After graduation, I decided to head to Chicago and find a job in the commodity markets because that was an interesting time, and the markets for things like cattle, corn and wheat were just getting started. But a funny thing happened. Along the way, I ended up running in 1970 for the office of state...

With the pick of Caroline Kennedy as his ambassador to Japan , President Obama seems to be channeling an unlikely muse: Richard Nixon . Obama and Tricky Dick are generally thought to have little in common. But on ambassadorships, the two presidents seem quite sympatico. Our pals over at the University of Virginia's Miller Center , whose scholars are transcribing and annotating all the secret White House tapes, noted a parallel between Obama's selection of Kennedy, a well-known former first daughter, and Nixon's attempted...

"I think he had a very strange brain," John Perkins mused about his old friend Ray Dockstader one afternoon last week. "He was a very competent administrator for many, many years, but then he would do the right-brain side and he would create things that no one could imagine. " As he spoke, Perkins was packing up Mr. Dockstader's cozy Penn Quarter apartment, boxing more than a half-century of life, work and Washington experience, including frame after frame of Mr. Dockstader's creations: photographs, paintings and works in his...

We fear that the March 29 news article " The Jobs Act falls short " may have left readers with an incomplete view of the impact of the bipartisan Jobs Act and its potential to improve the economy. While all of us who supported the law want to see even more initial public offerings (IPOs) created through the streamlined process it establishes, the record to date is compelling. According to Ernst and Young, of the 87 companies that filed IPO registrations from last April to December, 74 percent of them did so as...

Shame on Harry Reid for killing any prospect of an assault weapons ban . I understand why he did it, but that doesn't make it right. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama spoke with fiery eloquence about the cost of gun violence in shattered lives. "They deserve a vote," the president said of the victims, challenging Congress to take a stand on reasonable legislation to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of killers. Reid obviously disagrees. The Senate majority leader decided Tuesday to abandon a proposal by Sen....

The U.S. Senate — one-half of one branch of our government and an institution crucial to resolving serious issues before our country — is routinely described as dysfunctional, gridlocked and broken. We feel obligated to do something about it. That's why we went to the Senate floor last week to encourage our colleagues to embrace a classic virtue: self-restraint. Senate rules require, at most steps of the legislative process, agreement from all 100 senators; absent unanimous agreement, they entail a...

Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG), 9 a.m.: Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), chairman of the Republican Conference; Howard Dean , former chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former House speaker. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN), 9 a.m.: Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.); Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.); and Thomas R. Frieden , director of the Centers for Disease Control and...

CHICAGO, Jan. 3 -- Illinois's embattled governor said through his spokesman Saturday that Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has a conflict of interest regarding the Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama . Reid telephoned Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) in early December to discuss the seat, said Lucio Guerrero, a gubernatorial spokesman. Guerrero said he did not know firsthand which candidates Reid supported during the call, but added that he knows Reid's candidates did not include...

Rebels may be moving on Aleppo, Syria's largest city, but who says the Assad regime is in disarray? Last month, the Syrian Arab Republic's minister of foreign affairs informed the World Intellectual Property Organization (the United Nations agency headquartered in Geneva) that the regime had ratified the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances. The treaty was negotiated in Beijing last June, and Syria on March 18 became the first — the very first! — nation to formally join it. The treaty does not come into force until 30 countries...

Shame on Harry Reid for killing any prospect of an assault weapons ban . I understand why he did it, but that doesn't make it right. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama spoke with fiery eloquence about the cost of gun violence in shattered lives. "They deserve a vote," the president said of the victims, challenging Congress to take a stand on reasonable legislation to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of killers. Reid obviously disagrees. The Senate majority leader decided Tuesday to abandon a...

Dana Milbank's Jan. 6 Sunday Opinion column on gerrymandering [" Republicans' stacked deck in the House "] was as witty as usual; it's a pity that he made the same mistake that Post editorial writers always seem to make on the subject. Objectively, the Republicans have been worse on gerrymandering since Texas's GOP-controlled legislature, goaded by then-House majority leader Tom DeLay, pushed through a redistricting plan in 2003 , thus tossing out the precedent of drawing districts only after a decennial Census or court...

IN THE SPRING of 2005, Senate Democrats were in an uproar. Republicans, infuriated over what they perceived as the Democratic minority's abuses of the filibuster to block judicial nominees, were threatening to deploy the so-called nuclear option: changing the filibuster rules by a simple majority vote, rather than requiring the 67 votes ordinarily required for a rules change. "The current Senate majority intends to do what the majority in the Senate has often done — use its constitutional authority . . .

In politics, there is an accepted script that follows a presidential election . With election-night optimism, the winning leader promises the American people he will reach out in a bipartisan fashion, work across the aisle and reject politics as usual. President Obama has won reelection. Yet he still must win over the people who can help him govern effectively. To do so, he must translate the public words of bipartisanship into meaningful action in private negotiations with Republican leaders, so together they can break...

Harry Reid has one of the most important jobs in Washington. If only he could be as big as the office he holds. A "media advisory" came out Sunday night announcing that the Senate majority leader would be hosting a teleconference, but the topic wasn't Libya or the "fiscal cliff" or even the presidential race. No, the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate wanted to use his enormous megaphone to beat up on a Republican businessman running for a House seat in Reid's home state of Nevada.

Rebels may be moving on Aleppo, Syria's largest city, but who says the Assad regime is in disarray? Last month, the Syrian Arab Republic's minister of foreign affairs informed the World Intellectual Property Organization (the United Nations agency headquartered in Geneva) that the regime had ratified the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances. The treaty was negotiated in Beijing last June, and Syria on March 18 became the first — the very first! — nation to formally join it. The treaty does not come into force until 30 countries...

Full text of U.S. Senator and Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid's remarks to the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 4 in Charlotte, as prepared for delivery. My name is Harry Reid, the majority leader of the United States Senate and the senator from Searchlight, Nevada. It has been my honor to support and work with President Barack Obama, a man who has brought courage and character to the presidency. President Obama's strength of character leads him to do the right thing, even when it isn't the...

The book's title was bold, and its authors intended to outline a bold future. As "Young Guns" went on sale two years ago, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) took center stage on its cover, with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the foreground of the iconic photo taken on a Capitol balcony. More toward the back was Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the policy wonk whose star had yet to shine as brightly as those of his two 40-something friends. Yet on Wednesday night, as Ryan strode to the podium to accept the...