Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. ( born November 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Delaware and the Vice President-elect of the United States. Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and lived there for ten years prior to moving to Delaware.
He became an attorney in 1969, and was elected to a county council in 1970. Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, and has served for the sixth-longest period among current senators.
Biden is a long-time member and current chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. His strong advocacy helped bring about U.S. military assistance and intervention during the Bosnian War. He voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution, but later proposed resolutions to alter U.S. strategy there.
He has served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, and led creation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and Violence Against Women Act. He chaired the Judiciary Committee during the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008, both times dropping out early in the process. Barack Obama selected Biden to be the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 U.S. election. Biden is the first Roman Catholic to be elected Vice President, as well as the first from Delaware.
When Biden did take office on January 3, 1973, at age 30 (the minimum age to become a U.S. Senator), he became the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history.In 1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine.
Biden has since been elected to five additional terms, in most cases with about 60 percent of the vote.
He has not faced strong opposition; Governor Pierre S. du Pont, IV chose not to run against him in 1984.Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Thomas R. Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He is now the longest-serving senator in Delaware history.
In February 1988, after suffering from several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by long-distance ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and given lifesaving surgery to correct an intracranial berry aneurysm that had begun leaking;the situation was serious enough that a priest had administered last rites at the hospital.While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, which represented a major complication.
Another operation to repair a second aneurysm, which had caused no symptoms but was also at risk from bursting, was performed in May 1988.[43][41] The hospitalization and recovery kept Biden from his duties in the U.S. Senate for seven months.Biden has had no recurrences or effects from the aneurysms since then.
Biden serves on the following committees in the 110th U.S. Congress:
Committee on Foreign Relations (chairman)
As chairman of the full committee Biden is an ex officio member of each subcommittee.
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Antitrust Competition Policy and Consumer Rights
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs (chairman)
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Refugees
Subcommittee on Technology Terrorism and Homeland Security
Caucus on International Narcotics Control (co-chairman)
From left to right: Senator Biden, Senator Frank Church and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat after signing Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty, 1979Biden has been co-chair of the NATO Observer Group in the Senate.
Judiciary Committee
Biden is a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which he chaired from 1987 until 1995 and on which he served as ranking minority member from 1981 until 1987 and again from 1995 until 1997. In this capacity, he dealt with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties.
While chairman, Biden presided over the two most contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings in history, those for Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991.
In the Bork hearings, Biden stated his opposition to Bork soon after the nomination, reversing an approval in an interview of a hypothetical Bork nomination he had made the previous year and angering conservatives who thought he could not conduct the hearings dispassionately.At the close, Biden won praise for conducting the proceedings fairly and with good humor and courage, as his 1988 presidential campaign collapsed in the middle of the hearings.
Rejecting some of the less intellectually honest arguments that other Bork opponents were making,Biden framed his discussion around the belief that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy that extend beyond those explicitly enumerated in the text, and that Bork's strong originalism was ideologically incompatible with that view.Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then rejected in the full Senate by a 58–42 margin.
In the Thomas hearings, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often long and convoluted, sometimes such that Thomas forgot the question being asked.[48] Thomas later wrote that despite earlier private assurances from the senator, Biden's questions had been akin to a beanball.The nomination came out of the committee without a recommendation, with Biden opposed.
In part due to his own bad experiences in 1987 with his presidential campaign, Biden was reluctant to let personal matters enter into the hearings.Biden initially shared with committee, but not the public, Anita Hill's sexual harassment charges, on the grounds she was not yet willing to testify.
After she did, Biden did not permit other witnesses to testify further on her behalf, such as Angela Wright (who made a similar charge) and experts on harassment.Biden said he was striving to preserve Thomas's right to privacy and the decency of the hearings.
The nomination was approved by a 52–48 vote in the full Senate, with Biden again opposed.During and afterwards, Biden was strongly criticized by liberal legal groups and women's groups for having mishandled the hearings and having not done enough to support Hill.
Biden subsequently sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda.
A method that political scientists use for gauging ideology is to compare the annual ratings by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) with the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU).
Biden has a lifetime liberal 72 percent score from the ADA through 2004, while the ACU awarded Biden a lifetime conservative rating of 13 percent through 2007.Using another metric, Biden has a lifetime average liberal score of 77.5 percent, according to a National Journal analysis that places him ideologically among the center of Senate Democrats.
The Almanac of American Politics rates congressional votes as liberal or conservative on the political spectrum, in three policy areas: economic, social, and foreign. For 2005–2006, Biden's average ratings were as follows: the economic rating was 80 percent liberal and 13 percent conservative, the social rating was 78 percent liberal and 18 percent conservative, and the foreign rating was 71 percent liberal and 25 percent conservative.This has not changed much over time; his liberal ratings in the mid-1980s were also in the 70–80 percent range.
Various interest groups have given Biden scores or grades as to how well his votes align with the positions of each group. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) gives him an 86 percent lifetime score, with a 91 percent score for the current session of Congress.
Biden received a 91 percent voting record from the National Education Association (NEA) showing a pro-teacher union voting record. Biden opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. He co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to be a part of the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate.
Biden cites high health care and energy costs as two major threats to the prosperity of American businesses, and believes that addressing these issues will improve American economic competitiveness. Biden was given a 100 percent approval rating from AFL-CIO indicating a heavily pro-union voting record. Biden is opposed to the privatization of Social Security and was given an 89 percent approval rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), an organization of retired union members.
He became an attorney in 1969, and was elected to a county council in 1970. Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, and 2008, and has served for the sixth-longest period among current senators.
Biden is a long-time member and current chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. His strong advocacy helped bring about U.S. military assistance and intervention during the Bosnian War. He voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution, but later proposed resolutions to alter U.S. strategy there.
He has served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, and led creation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and Violence Against Women Act. He chaired the Judiciary Committee during the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008, both times dropping out early in the process. Barack Obama selected Biden to be the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 U.S. election. Biden is the first Roman Catholic to be elected Vice President, as well as the first from Delaware.
When Biden did take office on January 3, 1973, at age 30 (the minimum age to become a U.S. Senator), he became the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history.In 1974, freshman Senator Biden was named one of the 200 Faces for the Future by Time magazine.
Biden has since been elected to five additional terms, in most cases with about 60 percent of the vote.
He has not faced strong opposition; Governor Pierre S. du Pont, IV chose not to run against him in 1984.Biden spent 28 years as a junior senator due to the two-year seniority of his Republican colleague William V. Roth. After Roth was defeated for re-election by Thomas R. Carper in 2000, Biden became Delaware's senior senator. He is now the longest-serving senator in Delaware history.
In February 1988, after suffering from several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by long-distance ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and given lifesaving surgery to correct an intracranial berry aneurysm that had begun leaking;the situation was serious enough that a priest had administered last rites at the hospital.While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, which represented a major complication.
Another operation to repair a second aneurysm, which had caused no symptoms but was also at risk from bursting, was performed in May 1988.[43][41] The hospitalization and recovery kept Biden from his duties in the U.S. Senate for seven months.Biden has had no recurrences or effects from the aneurysms since then.
Biden serves on the following committees in the 110th U.S. Congress:
Committee on Foreign Relations (chairman)
As chairman of the full committee Biden is an ex officio member of each subcommittee.
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Antitrust Competition Policy and Consumer Rights
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs (chairman)
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Refugees
Subcommittee on Technology Terrorism and Homeland Security
Caucus on International Narcotics Control (co-chairman)
From left to right: Senator Biden, Senator Frank Church and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat after signing Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty, 1979Biden has been co-chair of the NATO Observer Group in the Senate.
Judiciary Committee
Biden is a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which he chaired from 1987 until 1995 and on which he served as ranking minority member from 1981 until 1987 and again from 1995 until 1997. In this capacity, he dealt with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties.
While chairman, Biden presided over the two most contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings in history, those for Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991.
In the Bork hearings, Biden stated his opposition to Bork soon after the nomination, reversing an approval in an interview of a hypothetical Bork nomination he had made the previous year and angering conservatives who thought he could not conduct the hearings dispassionately.At the close, Biden won praise for conducting the proceedings fairly and with good humor and courage, as his 1988 presidential campaign collapsed in the middle of the hearings.
Rejecting some of the less intellectually honest arguments that other Bork opponents were making,Biden framed his discussion around the belief that the U.S. Constitution provides rights to liberty and privacy that extend beyond those explicitly enumerated in the text, and that Bork's strong originalism was ideologically incompatible with that view.Bork's nomination was rejected in the committee by a 9–5 vote and then rejected in the full Senate by a 58–42 margin.
In the Thomas hearings, Biden's questions on constitutional issues were often long and convoluted, sometimes such that Thomas forgot the question being asked.[48] Thomas later wrote that despite earlier private assurances from the senator, Biden's questions had been akin to a beanball.The nomination came out of the committee without a recommendation, with Biden opposed.
In part due to his own bad experiences in 1987 with his presidential campaign, Biden was reluctant to let personal matters enter into the hearings.Biden initially shared with committee, but not the public, Anita Hill's sexual harassment charges, on the grounds she was not yet willing to testify.
After she did, Biden did not permit other witnesses to testify further on her behalf, such as Angela Wright (who made a similar charge) and experts on harassment.Biden said he was striving to preserve Thomas's right to privacy and the decency of the hearings.
The nomination was approved by a 52–48 vote in the full Senate, with Biden again opposed.During and afterwards, Biden was strongly criticized by liberal legal groups and women's groups for having mishandled the hearings and having not done enough to support Hill.
Biden subsequently sought out women to serve on the Judiciary Committee and emphasized women's issues in the committee's legislative agenda.
A method that political scientists use for gauging ideology is to compare the annual ratings by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) with the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU).
Biden has a lifetime liberal 72 percent score from the ADA through 2004, while the ACU awarded Biden a lifetime conservative rating of 13 percent through 2007.Using another metric, Biden has a lifetime average liberal score of 77.5 percent, according to a National Journal analysis that places him ideologically among the center of Senate Democrats.
The Almanac of American Politics rates congressional votes as liberal or conservative on the political spectrum, in three policy areas: economic, social, and foreign. For 2005–2006, Biden's average ratings were as follows: the economic rating was 80 percent liberal and 13 percent conservative, the social rating was 78 percent liberal and 18 percent conservative, and the foreign rating was 71 percent liberal and 25 percent conservative.This has not changed much over time; his liberal ratings in the mid-1980s were also in the 70–80 percent range.
Various interest groups have given Biden scores or grades as to how well his votes align with the positions of each group. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) gives him an 86 percent lifetime score, with a 91 percent score for the current session of Congress.
Biden received a 91 percent voting record from the National Education Association (NEA) showing a pro-teacher union voting record. Biden opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. He co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to be a part of the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate.
Biden cites high health care and energy costs as two major threats to the prosperity of American businesses, and believes that addressing these issues will improve American economic competitiveness. Biden was given a 100 percent approval rating from AFL-CIO indicating a heavily pro-union voting record. Biden is opposed to the privatization of Social Security and was given an 89 percent approval rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), an organization of retired union members.
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