Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˌrɒbɪˈnɛt ˈbaɪdən/;[1] born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017 and represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in the 2020 election. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and in 2008.
Biden was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New Castle County, Delaware. He studied at the University of Delaware before receiving his law degree from Syracuse University.[2] He became a lawyer in 1969 and was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972, when he became the sixth-youngest senator in American history. Biden was reelected six times and was the fourth-most senior senator when he resigned to assume the vice presidency in 2009.
As a senator, Biden was a longtime member and eventually chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991 but advocated for U.S. and NATO intervention in the Bosnian War in 1994 and 1995, expanding NATO in the 1990s, and the 1999 bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War. He argued and voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, as well as the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden led the efforts to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act.
In 2008, Biden was the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. He was the first Roman Catholic to serve as vice president of the United States.[3] As vice president, Biden oversaw infrastructure spending to counteract the Great Recession and helped formulate U.S. policy toward Iraq through the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. His negotiations with congressional Republicans helped the Obama administration pass legislation including the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which resolved a taxation deadlock; the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved that year's debt ceiling crisis; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending fiscal cliff. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012.
In October 2015, after months of speculation, Biden announced he would not seek the presidency in the 2016 election. In January 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.[4] After completing his second term as vice president, Biden joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice.[5] He announced his 2020 candidacy for president on April 25, 2019.[6] With the suspension of the campaign of Bernie Sanders on April 8, 2020, Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidential election
Biden was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[8]:5 to Catherine Eugenia Biden (née Finnegan; July 7, 1917 – January 8, 2010)[9] and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. (November 13, 1915 – September 2, 2002).[10] The first of four siblings in a Catholic family, he had a sister and two brothers.[8]:9 His mother was of Irish descent, with roots variously attributed to County Louth[11] and County Londonderry.[12][8]:8 His paternal grandparents, Mary Elizabeth (née Robinette) and Joseph H. Biden, an oil businessman from Baltimore, Maryland, were of English, French, and Irish descent.[13][8]:8 His paternal third great-grandfather, William Biden, was born in Sussex, England, and immigrated to the United States. His maternal great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt,[14] was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate.[15]
Biden's father was wealthy but had suffered several financial setbacks by the time his son was born. For several years, the family had to live with Biden's maternal grandparents, the Finnegans.[16] When the Scranton area fell into economic decline during the 1950s, Biden's father could not find sustained work.[17] In 1953, the Bidens moved into an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, where they lived for several years before again moving to a house in Wilmington, Delaware.[16] Joe Biden Sr. later became a successful used car salesman, maintaining the family's middle-class lifestyle.
Biden attended the Archmere Academy in Claymont,[8]:27, 32 where he was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team; he helped lead a perennially losing team to an undefeated season in his senior year.[16][19] He played on the baseball team as well.[16] Academically, he was a poor student but was considered a natural leader among the students and elected class president during his junior and senior years.[8]:40–41[20]:99 He graduated in 1961.[8]:40–41
He earned his bachelor's degree in 1965 from the University of Delaware, with a double major in history and political science,[21] graduating with a class rank of 506 out of 688.[20]:98 He impressed his classmates with his cramming abilities,[22] and played halfback for the Blue Hens freshman football team.[19] In 1964, while on spring break in the Bahamas,[23] he met and began dating Neilia Hunter, who was from an affluent background in Skaneateles, New York, and attended Syracuse University.[16][24] He told her he aimed to become a senator by the age of 30 and then president.[25] He dropped a junior-year plan to play for the varsity football team as a defensive back, enabling him to spend more time visiting her.[19][26]
He then entered Syracuse University College of Law, later saying that he found law school "the biggest bore in the world" and that he pulled many all-nighters to get by.[27][22][28] During his first year there, Biden was accused of having plagiarized five of 15 pages of a law review article. He said that it was inadvertent, because he did not know the proper rules of citation. He was given an F grade and required to retake a course. This incident was cited in 1987, when plagiarism accusations arose during his first run for president.[28][29] Biden received his Juris Doctor in 1968,[30] graduating 76th of 85 in his class.[27] He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.[30]
Biden received student draft deferments during this period.[31] After completing his studies, the Selective Service System classified him as unavailable for service due to a history of asthma.[31][32]
He has had a problem with stuttering throughout his life, especially in his childhood and his early twenties,[33] and says he has helped reduce the problem by spending many hours reciting poetry in front of a mirror.[20]:99 But he continues to have problems with stuttering, and it has been suggested that this has affected his performance in Democratic debates during his 2020 campaign for the presidency.[34]
Negative impressions of drinking alcohol in the Biden and Finnegan families and in the neighborhood led Biden to be a non-drinker.[16][35]
Early political career and family life (1966–1972)
On August 27, 1966, while still a law student, Biden married Neilia Hunter.[21] They overcame her parents' initial reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic, and the ceremony was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York.[36] They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III in 1969, Robert Hunter in 1970, and Naomi Christina in 1971.[21]
In 1968, Biden clerked for six months at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, as he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican".[25][37] He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware Governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968.[25] The local Republicans tried to recruit him, but he resisted due to his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, and registered as an Independent instead.[25]
In 1969, Biden resumed practicing law in Wilmington, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by Sid Balick, a locally active Democrat.[22][25] Balick named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party,[8]:86 and Biden registered as a Democrat.[25] He also started his own firm, Biden and Walsh.[22] Corporate law, however, did not appeal to him and criminal law did not pay well.[16] He supplemented his income by managing properties.[38]
Later in 1969, Biden ran to represent the 4th district on the New Castle County Council with a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburban area.[22][39] He won by 2,000 votes in the usually Republican district and a bad year for Democrats in the state.[22][8]:59 Even before taking his seat, he was already talking about running for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years.[8]:59 He served on the County Council from 1970 to 1972[30] while continuing his private law practice.[40] Among issues he addressed on the council was his opposition to large highway projects that might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods, including those related to Interstate 95.[8]:62
1972 U.S. Senate campaign
Biden's candidacy in the 1972 U.S. Senate election in Delaware presented an unusual circumstance—longtime Delaware political figure and Republican incumbent senator J. Caleb Boggs was considering retirement, which would likely have left U.S. Representative Pete du Pont and Wilmington Mayor Harry G. Haskell Jr. in a divisive primary fight. To avoid that, President Nixon helped convince Boggs to run again with full party support. No other Democrat wanted to run against Boggs.[22] Biden's campaign had almost no money and was given no chance of winning.[16] His sister Valerie Biden Owens managed his campaign (as she would his future campaigns) and other family members staffed it. The campaign relied upon handed-out newsprint position papers and meeting voters face-to-face;[41] the state's smallness and lack of a major media market made that approach feasible.[38] He did receive some help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell.[22] His campaign focused on withdrawal from Vietnam; the environment; civil rights; mass transit; more equitable taxation; health care; the public's dissatisfaction with politics as usual,; and "change".[22][41] During the summer, he trailed by almost 30 percentage points,[22] but his energy level, his attractive young family, and his ability to connect with voters' emotions gave him an advantage over the ready-to-retire Boggs.[18] Biden won the November 7 election by 3,162 votes.[41]
Family deaths
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware.[21] Neilia Biden's station wagon was hit by a tractor-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Biden's sons Beau and Hunter survived the accident and were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds, and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries.[8]:93, 98 Doctors soon said both would make full recoveries.[8]:96 Biden considered resigning to care for them,[18] but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.[42] In later years, Biden often said that the truck driver had drunk alcohol before the collision, but the driver's family has denied that claim and the police never substantiated it.[43][44][45][46]
United States Senate (1973–2009)
Recovery and remarriage
Biden was sworn into office on January 5, 1973, by secretary of the Senate Francis R. Valeo in a small chapel at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center.[47][8]:93, 98 Beau was wheeled in with his leg still in traction; Hunter, who had already been released, was also there, as were other members of the extended family.[47][8]:93, 98 Witnesses and television cameras were also present and the event received national attention.[47][8]:93, 98
At age 30 (the minimum age required to hold the office), Biden became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history, and one of only 18 who took office before turning 31.[48][49] But the accident that killed his wife and daughter left him filled with both anger and religious doubt: "I liked to [walk around seedy neighborhoods] at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight ... I had not known I was capable of such rage ... I felt God had played a horrible trick on me."[50] To be at home every day for his young sons,[51] Biden began commuting every day by Amtrak train 90 minutes each way from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, D.C., which he continued to do throughout his Senate career.[18] In the accident's aftermath, he had trouble focusing on work and appeared to just go through the motions of being a senator. In his memoirs, Biden notes that staffers were taking bets on how long he would last.[24][52] A single father for five years, he left standing orders that he be interrupted in the Senate at any time if his sons called.[42] In remembrance of his wife and daughter, Biden does not work on December 18, the anniversary of the accident.
