[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1259-1260]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    100TH BIRTHDAY OF RONALD REAGAN

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Ronald Reagan's second inauguration was the 
first one I attended as a Member of Congress. It was bitterly cold that 
day. While the temperatures sank into the single digits, Reagan became 
the first and only President to take the oath of office in the Capitol 
Rotunda.
  He said in an indoor inaugural address:

       History is a ribbon, always unfurling. History is a 
     journey. And as we continue our journey, we think of those 
     that traveled before us.

  Yesterday would have been President Reagan's 100th birthday. Today, 
we think of President Reagan and how he steered America's travels 
through history's journey. I first met President Reagan when he was 
Governor of California. I was the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. We met 
in Heavenly Valley, on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, to watch the 
first annual ``hot-dogging'' skiing championship. As I said, I first 
met him and we had a wonderful visit. I enjoyed that day very much.
  His own travels took him not only to Lake Tahoe in my State but 
through the entire State. California's Ronald Reagan was a close friend 
of Nevada's. In his earliest days as an actor, he entertained crowds at 
the Last Frontier on the Las Vegas strip. Decades later, the same week 
Ronald Reagan became Governor of California, Paul Laxalt became 
Governor next door in Nevada.
  When Reagan first sought the Presidency, Laxalt managed his campaign, 
and when President Reagan worked down the street at the White House, 
Paul Laxalt worked here as Nevada's senior Senator. It was a special 
relationship, a unique relationship, one so close that some called 
Senator Laxalt the First Friend, and he was that.
  I was fortunate enough to see firsthand President Reagan's 
appreciation for Nevada. After talking to Nevadans in Ely and across 
eastern Nevada, I came to the conclusion that I should drop some 
wilderness I was going to put in place and instead form a national 
park. Nevada did not have a national park, and we would call it the 
Great Basin National Park. After I introduced that legislation and it 
passed, President Reagan's Secretary of Agriculture recommended that he 
veto what would be Nevada's only national park. The Agriculture 
Secretary did not much like the idea of a young Member of Congress from 
the other political party putting such a bill on the President's desk.
  I was worried about that. Word came to me that the President was 
going to veto this bill that was important to me. I asked for a meeting 
with his Superintendent of Parks, the National Parks Director. He had 
been the Superintendent of Parks for Ronald Reagan when Reagan was 
Governor of California. His name was Penn Mott. When he came to see me, 
he had been in the service of our country in many different ways. He 
was an elderly man when he came to see me. I explained to him what was 
happening and that I was told that President Reagan, upon 
recommendation of one of his Cabinet members, was going to veto my 
bill. That man looked at me and he said: President Reagan is not going 
to veto that bill. He said, when I was a young park ranger in 1928, Key 
Pittman, who was a famous Nevada Senator, very close to President 
Roosevelt, sent me to Nevada to find a place for a national park. He 
said: That is my park. I am the one who said it would go there. That is 
where it should go, and it never made it legislatively. But because of 
that meeting I had, and Ronald Reagan's understanding of what politics 
is all about, he did not veto my bill. He overruled his Secretary, and 
together, Harry Reid and Ronald Reagan created the Great Basin National 
Park.
  It was not the last time President Reagan and I worked together to 
preserve our West. I introduced legislation that was important 
legislation. It involved two Indian tribes, two endangered species, it 
involved Lake Tahoe,

[[Page 1260]]

and it involved two rivers, the Truckee and Carson Rivers--I think I 
mentioned the two Indian tribes--a huge wetlands that had gone from a 
couple of hundred thousand acres to maybe less than a thousand very 
putrid acres. Birds died eating and drinking there. The wetlands 
basically had dried up.
  It was a very important piece of legislation, but I got it passed. I 
got it passed here. Then it went to the House and got passed. Again, 
President Reagan's advisers recommended he veto that bill. Part of it 
was because of who pushed the legislation through. But President Reagan 
knew how important it was to Lake Tahoe, and one of his assistants, Sig 
Rogich, talked to him. Sig is a long-time Nevadan, worked very closely 
with President Reagan and with President Bush, and he talked to him 
about this important legislation. It was not vetoed. He signed this 
bill in spite of people recommending that this not be signed.
  President Reagan's help in ending this water war meant a lot to me 
because he knew that when Americans are all in this together, even 
local issues, even statewide issues, are all of our concern. I remember 
how he signed my bill to establish this park because his view of that 
national park embodied his vision of the Nation.
  He never looked at the legislation as a map of red States and blue 
States and purple States but as a landscape of States colored by green 
forests and brown deserts and clear waters.
  My legislation, entitled the Negotiated Settlement, has changed that 
part of the country. Lake Tahoe is better off. The Indian tribes are 
better off. We preserved a lake, Lake Pyramid. It was landmark 
legislation. It could not have been done without his signature.
  He knew when the Sun breached the horizon each day, the morning that 
dawned in America was a morning for all Americans and for families of 
all backgrounds. He said in that second inaugural address, ``we have 
worked and acted together, not as members of political parties, but as 
Americans.''
  Ronald Reagan was a Republican President from the West, who cherished 
a famously close friendship with Tip O'Neill, a Democratic Speaker of 
the House from the East. Ronald Reagan was a patriot who created a 
friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of a nation he called an 
Evil Empire. He would make certain America could defend herself but 
quietly sent a diplomatic team to start negotiating with the Soviet 
Union the minute he took office.
  Ronald Reagan knew politics has always been and always will be about 
compromise, and that compromise can only happen when politicians share 
personal relationships. He knew public servants worked better as 
partners rather than partisans. And as much as he criticized 
government, he knew it was not a faceless machine. He appreciated that 
government exists, as Lincoln said, of, for, and by the people.
  That is why he was more beholden to simple pragmatism than stubborn 
principle. That is why he, a staunch conservative, raised taxes 11 
times when the economy needed revenue. It is why he viewed the 
challenge of immigration through a practical lens. It is why he knew 
America could be strong and would be stronger still in a world without 
nuclear weapons.
  He was not perfect. I did not agree with many of his politics or 
policies. But I always admired the way he captured our country's 
imagination. I always respected his honest assessment of his strengths 
and limitations alike. He was somebody who could look at himself and we 
would all smile a little bit.
  One time he was running for Governor of California and someone asked 
him: Do you think you will be a good Governor? He said: I do not know. 
I have never acted the part.
  That is who he was. He honestly assessed who he was, his strengths 
and limitations, and I admired the way he humbly surrounded himself 
with good, smart people.
  A century after his birth Ronald Reagan's legacy remains as enduring 
as anyone who has ever unfurled the long ribbon of our Nation's 
history. That legacy lives not merely in his policies, and to honor it, 
it is not enough to try to apply his solutions of 30 years ago to the 
problems we confront today; rather, we should remember how he respected 
his colleagues and his constituents. We should try to emulate the 
confidence he communicated.
  Ronald Reagan was a proud neighbor of Nevada, who united and 
motivated us by reminding us that all Americans live in the same 
neighborhood. That is a lesson I still remember today. That is a lesson 
I remember best about our 40th President, Ronald Reagan.

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