--- title: Harry Reid: 3 Surprising facts description: There's more to the retiring Senate Democratic leader than meets the eye canonical: https://time.com/3761553/harry-reid-retire-things-you-should-know/ author: Alex Rogers article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-27T16:15:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T05:30:17.614Z article:section: Politics og:title: 3 Surprising Facts About Senator Harry Reid og:description: There's more to the retiring Senate Democratic leader than meets the eye og:url: https://time.com/3761553/harry-reid-retire-things-you-should-know/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8882e7a4ba801aa/6987859235ba6f5603c07c5c/reid.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Harry Reid og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 3 Surprising Facts About Senator Harry Reid twitter:description: There's more to the retiring Senate Democratic leader than meets the eye twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8882e7a4ba801aa/6987859235ba6f5603c07c5c/reid.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 3 Surprising Facts About Senator Harry Reid by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Mar 27, 2015 4:15 PM UTC  Harry Reid on July 10, 2000 Harry Reid on July 10, 2000Douglas Graham—Roll Call/Getty Images by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Mar 27, 2015 4:15 PM UTC When Harry Reid retires in 2017, he will have served as the Senate Democratic leader for 12 years—longer than all but two other senators in the country’s history. But while he’s well-known inside Washington, the Senate Majority Leader is a distant figure to many Americans. His dry speaking style and low-key persona has kept him from becoming a household name, even as he’s led Democrats and at times the Senate itself. But whether you approve of the job he’s done or not, Reid is actually fairly colorful. Here are three things you should know about the man from Searchlight as he heads out the door. **His mother used to do laundry for a brothel** Reid had a tough upbringing, growing up in “tiny wood shack with a tin roof’ as the “son of a hard-drinking gold miner, who eventually shot and killed himself,” according to a [TIME](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,995647-2,00.html) 2004 profile. In 2011, Reid called for Nevada’s brothel industry to be outlawed, recalling stories of his mother taking laundry in from some of the [13 brothels](http://www.reviewjournal.com/political-eye/reid-calls-legislators-cowards-over-prostitution) that his hometown had at one point. “Nevada needs to be known as the first place for innovation and investment–not as the last place where prostitution is still legal,” Reid told the [state legislature](http://www.reid.senate.gov/press%5Freleases/sen-reid-addresses-nevada-state-legislature) then. “When the nation thinks about Nevada, it should think about the world’s newest ideas and newest careers—not about its oldest profession.” **He once tried to choke a man who tried to bribe him** Reid was an amateur boxer and later paid his way through George Washington University as a night-shift Capitol police officer, so he knows how to crack heads, literally. That came in handy when he was chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981\. While he worked there he received “repeated death threats from the mob,” according to his biography, and had at least one instance where a man attempted to bribe him. Bad move. Per a 2005 [New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/08/08/minority-retort?printable=true) piece: --- > “” --- **He inspired a character in a Martin Scorsese film** Few bureaucrats can say that their work was fictionalized by Scorsese. In 1978, Reid held a hearing as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission that was later used in the 1995 film _Casino_. Dick Smothers’ character spouted some of Reid’s statements during the scene where Robert De Niro’s character freaks out after the commission rejects his application for a license to operate a casino, according to [Slate](http://www.slate.com/articles/news%5Fand%5Fpolitics/ballot%5Fbox/2004/12/harry%5Freid%5Fis%5Fnot%5Fboring.html). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3761553/harry-reid-retire-things-you-should-know/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3761553/harry-reid-retire-things-you-should-know/"},"headline":"3 Surprising Facts About Senator Harry Reid","datePublished":"2015-03-27T16:15:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:30:17.614Z","description":"There's more to the retiring Senate Democratic leader than meets the eye","url":"https://time.com/3761553/harry-reid-retire-things-you-should-know/","keywords":["Congress"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8882e7a4ba801aa/6987859235ba6f5603c07c5c/reid.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alex Rogers","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8882e7a4ba801aa/6987859235ba6f5603c07c5c/reid.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Harry Reid","caption":"Harry Reid","creditText":"Douglas Graham—Roll Call/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3761553/harry-reid-retire-things-you-should-know/","name":"3 Surprising Facts About Senator Harry Reid"}}]}] ```