1) User's Manual to Reid lying in state: For the second time in as many months, a late Senate Majority Leader lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda Wednesday. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) died just after Christmas.
2) Reid becomes the 34th prominent American to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Reid’s flag-draped casket will arrive at the Capitol at 10:30 am et and be ushered into the Rotunda by an honor guard.
3) Reid’s coffin will rest atop the catafalque, a crude, wooden platform used in the Rotunda when President Lincoln lied in state.
4) Vice President Harris will deliver remarks at a ceremony this morning for Reid. President Biden and former President Obama spoke over the weekend at a memorial service for Reid in Nevada. Reid is one of the longest-serving Senate Majority Leaders in history.
5) Before coming to Congress, Reid worked as a U.S. Capitol Police officer and was a boxer. Nevada officials just renamed McCarran International Airport in Nevada after Reid days before he died.
6) Henry Clay was the first American to lie in state in the Rotunda in 1852. Officials won’t permit the public to enter the Capitol to view Reid’s casket due to the pandemic.
7) Ceremonies for fallen Americans at the Capitol have increased over the past year and a half. We mentioned Dole. Late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) laid in state in the Rotunda. Late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg laid in state in Statuary Hall in the fall of 2020.
8) USCP Officers Brian Sicknick and Billy Evans laid in honor in the Rotunda last year. Lying in “honor” is one formal step below lying in “state.”
9) The U.S. went from 1989 with late Rep. and Sen. Claude Pepper (D-FL) lying in state in the Rotunda to 1998 without having a similar service at the Capitol.
10) Late USCP Officers John Gibson and Jacob Chestnut laid in honor in the Rotunda in 1998 after they were shot. That marked the first time any figures had laid in honor.
11) Late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) did not lie in state. However, Byrd’s casket laid in repose in the Senate chamber in 2010.
The funeral procession of late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-D-MA) drove by the Capitol as part of services when he died in the late summer of 2009.
The funeral procession of late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-D-MA) drove by the Capitol as part of services when he died in the late summer of 2009.
12) President Richard Nixon died in 1994. But Nixon’s family not want him to lie in state in the Rotunda. The thought was that some observers might not be respectful.
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