Reid put the screws to Speaker John Boehner over Department of Homeland Security funding, helping to keep eyes where they belonged: on the House leadership's refusal to bring a clean bill up for a vote. Senate Democrats blocked anti-immigrant DHS funding bills four times as House Republicans refused to do the responsible thing until the very last minute.
Reid has also led Senate Democrats in blocking a poison pill anti-abortion provision Republicans snuck into a human trafficking bill. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republicans have held Loretta Lynch's nomination for attorney general hostage to make Democrats surrender and expand abortion restrictions to a particularly vulnerable group of women in a law that's supposedly about helping them, but Democrats aren't budging.
Minority Reid has repeatedly defied both expectations and Republicans, keeping the Senate Democrats united against Republican efforts to add terrible things even to bills Democrats otherwise support. He has looked like a man who Gave No Fucks, and now we have to wonder if that's been the look of a man who was contemplating retirement. And, before any Republicans start celebrating too hard, know that Reid has no plans to have a quiet pre-retirement:
Reid: "My friend Sen. McConnell, don't be too elated. I'm going to be here for 22 months"—@burgessev