FROM THE ALMANAC OF AMERICAN POLITICS

Sen. Joseph Biden (D)

Delaware: Senior Senator

Monday, Aug. 25, 2008


Joseph Biden, Delaware's longest-serving senator, was first elected in 1972, at age 29 (he reached the constitutional age of 30 by the time he took office); he has spent most of his life as a senator. Biden grew up in a middle class home, the son of a Scranton, Penn. car salesman and a homemaker; one grandfather was a state senator in Pennsylvania. As a teenager he had a stutter, but taught himself to deliver a speech to his whole school to overcome the impediment. He graduated from the University of Delaware and then got a degree from Syracuse Law School, though he was not a standout student, finishing near the bottom of his class. Biden married and started a family while still in law school, then moved to the Wilmington suburbs and practiced law. In 1970, at 27, he was elected to the New Castle County Council, and found that he enjoyed politics. In 1972, he ran for the Senate against a popular incumbent, Republican J. Caleb Boggs, portraying himself as a young, energetic alternative to Boggs with an ability to connect with voters. He ended up winning by just a little over 3,000 votes. A month later, while Biden was in Washington, D.C. setting up his Senate office, his wife, Neilia, and their infant daughter, Naomi, were killed in an auto accident while shopping for a Christmas tree. His two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were injured in the crash. Grief-stricken, Biden felt he could not begin his Senate term in January as planned and decided to immediately resign. But he was persuaded by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to take the seat, and began his practice, kept to this day, of commuting from his home near Wilmington on Amtrak, 80 minutes to and from Washington every day. His two sons made full recoveries, and today, as adults, are avid supporters. Beau Biden was elected attorney general of Delaware in 2006; Hunter Biden is also a lawyer. Five years after the accident, Biden married a teacher, Jill Jacobs, with whom he had another daughter, Ashley.

In the Senate, Biden has a moderate-to-liberal voting record. For many years he did much of his most visible work on the Judiciary Committee, where he was chairman from 1987-95 and the ranking Democrat from 1981-87 and 1995-97. The issues that arise on the committee--abortion, flag-burning, capital punishment, crime control--cut deeply. As chairman, Biden presided over the most contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings in history, for conservative Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Four years later, the hearings for Judge Clarence Thomas exploded when someone leaked charges of sexual harassment by law professor Anita Hill. Biden was bitterly criticized for covering up this information, though he had shared it with committee members, who agreed that Hill's initial unwillingness to testify publicly meant that any reference to it would be unfair to Thomas. Once the story was out, Hill and then Thomas testified to fascinated television audiences. Thomas was confirmed, over Biden's opposition.

In 1987, Biden began a campaign for president, hoping to inspire a new generation as John F. Kennedy had in the 1960s. But Biden quit the race after a staffer for Democrat Michael Dukakis leaked an attack video showing similarities between Biden's stump speech about his background and a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. That was followed by reports that Biden had plagiarized portions of a law school paper, and also exaggerated his working class roots and his academic record. Misfortune followed him the following year, when he was stricken by an aneurysm on the night of the New Hampshire primary. Biden was rushed to the hospital and nearly died, but recovered fully.

After the Thomas hearings, Biden seemed defensive about attacks from the feminist left, then the greatest source of activism in the Democratic Party. He sought out women to serve on Judiciary and worked hard on the 1994 Violence Against Women Act; he helped renew it in 2000, although the Supreme Court declared part of it unconstitutional, and again in 2005. Later, he opposed the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, and after the hearings on their nominations said, "I have reached a conclusion that we should not even have these hearings, that we should just go right to the floor like they used to do in the old days."

Biden was the sponsor in Judiciary of the bankruptcy bill, backed strongly by Delaware's MBNA and other credit card issuers, which was vetoed by Bill Clinton in 2000. It was brought up again in 2001 with a president ready to sign it, and versions passed both the Senate and the House. But two contentious issues blocked final passage. One was the homestead exemption; the Senate voted to limit it to $125,000, but the House version allowed unlimited exemptions once a home had been owned for two years (Florida and Texas have unlimited exemptions, and some bankrupts hold onto $5 million houses). Biden agreed to accept the House version. The other issue was New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer's amendment making fines incurred by anti-abortion protesters not dischargeable in bankruptcy. On this, Biden would not yield. In November 2002 the bill, with a version of the Schumer provision, was defeated in the House when 87 anti-abortion Republicans spurned the leadership's pleas and defeated the bill. In 2005, Biden again voted for the Schumer amendment, which failed, but also voted for the final bankruptcy bill.

Biden has also used his seat on Judiciary to combat what he considers harmful drugs. In April 2003, he amended an Amber Alert bill with a version of the RAVE Act, with prison terms up to nine years for club owners sponsoring raves at which Ecstasy and other illegal drugs are used. In October 2004, he persuaded the Senate to pass a bill criminalizing steroid precursors like androstenedione, the supplement used by baseball slugger Mark McGwire; it was reconciled with the House version and became law. In December 2004, Biden threatened to sponsor legislation addressing drug use in baseball if Major League Baseball failed to clamp down. He hailed the agreement on the issue between the baseball commissioner and the players' union in November 2005.

Biden became ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee in 1997 and chairman in June 2001 and again in January 2007. He entered into a constructive working relationship with Jesse Helms, chairman from 1995 to 2001. When democracy in the former Yugoslavia was thwarted by state-led terrorism and when multilateral instrumentalities proved ineffective, Biden was among the strongest voices to call for lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia and training Bosnian Muslims, demanding that the United States and NATO investigate war crimes there, and arguing for NATO air strikes. To the incoming Bush administration he was friendly but sometimes critical. Then America was attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. In the weeks following, Biden praised Bush for being "patient, resolute and cautious." In July and August 2002, he held two days of hearings on Iraq, with administration witnesses. In August, he said the United States has "no choice but to eliminate" Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and that "probably" it means war with Iraq. He conferred frequently with Secretary of State Colin Powell and pushed for the United States to bring the issue to the United Nations; he said a unilateral attack would be the "single worst option." In late September 2002, he and ranking Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana were working to bring forward a resolution that would authorize the president to take action to remove weapons of mass destruction, but not Hussein himself, only after exhausting diplomatic options. Bush opposed this, and forestalled Biden and Lugar by getting agreement on terms of a resolution from Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt. Biden voted for it in October 2002.

As fighting and casualties continued and rose after major military operations were completed, Biden became more critical of the administration. In June 2003, he said Bush should "level with the American people" about the cost and length of the Iraq commitment, and was angry when administration officials refused to put a price tag on the effort. In August 2003, he said he did not regret his vote for the war, but added, "There's nothing international about this until we get NATO in there and we get Islamic forces in there." He said the administration was filled with "control freaks who are allowing their ideology to get in the way of common sense," a reference to Vice President Dick Cheney. In April 2004, looking ahead to the June 30 turnover of power, he said, "Our goal should be to take the 'American face' off the occupation so that we are not blamed for everything that doesn't go right in Iraq." He said that Bush should call a summit conference of allies and broaden the coalition. In September 2005, he called for a postponement of the constitutional referendum until after the elections for the national assembly, so that Sunnis could participate. In May 2006, he and former Council on Foreign Relations head Leslie Gelb announced a plan for Iraq. The country should be divided into three semi-autonomous regions, they argued, for Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, much as Bosnia had been. Oil revenues should be shared among the regions. American aid should be conditioned on respect shown for women's rights; the U.S. military should withdraw by 2008; and, there should be a United Nations or internationally sanctioned regional conference in which Iraq's neighbors should agree to work for stability. He continued to call for this approach through the year and in December, criticized the Iraq Study Group proposal for not saying more about a political settlement. In December 2006, he came out against Bush's surge strategy. "We've tried the military surge option before and it failed. If we try it again, it will fail again." He co-sponsored with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan a nonbinding resolution declaring, "It is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq." The resolution passed in committee, 12-9, after most Republicans expressed reservations.

As chairman, Biden traveled widely and for a time at least, seemed to have been taken into the confidence of the administration. Condoleezza Rice encouraged him to sound out Iranian diplomats at the United Nations when they requested a meeting. As ranking minority member in 2003, he did not have as much power, but he worked closely with the new chairman, Lugar, and said that he and Lugar were in agreement on many issues. Biden has urged caution on Iran and has called for the U.S. to engage in unilateral negotiations with North Korea and in 2005 suggested that the United States extend economic incentives for an agreement. He co-sponsored a resolution with Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell calling for restriction on aid to the Palestinian Authority until the Hamas government renounced violence, recognized Israel and moved against terrorist groups. He supported the nuclear agreement with India in 2006, and defended it against those who argued that it undermined nonproliferation efforts.

Biden remains an everyday figure in Delaware and has tended to its most local needs. Sussex County is America's number one chicken-producing county, and he held up a bill for favorable trade status for Russia when that country blocked the import of U.S. chickens. He has gotten more than 1,000 acres of federal land in the beach areas turned over to the state. Naturally, he has supported Amtrak funding and has sought, unsuccessfully to get $1.1 billion spent on rail security. On his daily commutes, he has come to know the Amtrak crew members personally and hosts an annual Christmas dinner for them.

Being elected a senator at age 29 makes you think about running for president some day, and Biden has done that twice, once in his 40s and then in his 60s. He passed up the 1992 campaign, fresh after his vote against the Gulf war. In 1996 Bill Clinton was renominated without opposition and in 2000, Clinton tried to clear the field for Al Gore. In early 2003 he said he might run, but in August 2003, he announced he would not. In 2004, Biden campaigned for Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry, a fellow senator from Massachusetts whom he has known since 1972, when they both hired the same political consultant. Biden was frequently mentioned as a possible secretary of state if Kerry had been elected. After Kerry's defeat, he made little secret that he was interested in running again. "My intention is to seek the nomination," he said on the Face the Nation television news program in June 2005. "I know I'm supposed to tell you, you know, that I'm not sure. But if, in fact, I think that I have a clear shot at winning the nomination by this November or December, then I'm going to seek the nomination." He made his first trip of the cycle to New Hampshire in May 2006 and to Iowa in August 2006. Some of his off-the-cuff statements caused him embarrassment. "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts franchise unless you have a slight Indian accent," he remarked. When Fox News' Chris Wallace suggested he couldn't draw votes in the South, he said, "You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country." Again, some tut-tutted, although he made a valid historical point. On Jan. 31, 2007, he officially announced his candidacy. Unfortunately, that day the New York Observer released a story in which he called Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Critics pointed out that this overlooked or insulted Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton. By 6 p.m., in time for the evening news, Biden said, "I deeply regret any offense my remark in the New York Observer might have caused anyone." Washington insiders wrote off his candidacy, and he raised only $4 million in the first quarter of 2007. But as he pointed out, he had more experience in office than any other candidate and served more than 30 years on the Foreign Relations Committee. Indeed, no president has ever had as many years experience in Congress. "If the national Democratic primary and caucus voters conclude this is a really big-ticket election in the sense that what's at stake is literally our place in the world and the restoration of the middle class, then I'm in the game. If it's about who has the most money, who has the most early endorsements, then I'm not going to be in that game." And he got credit for the wittiest response in the first Democratic candidates' debate. When MSNBC's Brian Williams asked him if he had the self-discipline to refrain from overlong statements, he answered, "Yes."

Biden's campaign was predicated on the notion that he was a respected, experienced expert on American foreign policy who'd expressed reservations about a war that grew to be unpopular with the public the longer it dragged on. He called for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq and emphasized his plan to create three self-governing regions in the country as a path toward self governance. But Biden's campaign never developed traction. While Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton attracted thousands of people to rallies, Biden's events were ill attended and he struggled to raise money. He said he would have to finish in the top three in the Iowa caucus, the first-in-the-nation contest in the nominating season. He got just 1% of the caucus vote, placing fifth, behind Obama, Clinton, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Biden quietly ended his campaign, and withdrew to his work in the Senate.

He jumped in where he'd left off on the Foreign Relations Committee. The six-term senator also spent time with his family, particularly after a haunting episode in January 2008 when Jill escaped serious injury in an automobile accident on an interstate highway. He planned for hearings in committee on the increasing instability in Afghanistan and focused his attention on the peacekeeping mission in the Darfur region of Sudan. With tensions mounting between Georgia and the Russian Federation, Biden in August 2008 traveled to Eastern Europe to meet in Tbilisi with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, with whom he has a preexisting relationship. In recent months, he was also among a handful of candidates being actively vetted by the Obama camp as it sought to narrow down a possible vice president.

On Thursday, Aug. 21, Biden took a call from Obama asking him to join the ticket as the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Two days later, the Obama campaign broke the news via the Internet early in the morning, then introduced Biden at a rally in the Illinois state capital of Springfield. Obama touted Biden's potential to appeal to working class voters, a constituency that has eluded the Harvard-educated Obama. "He is still that scrappy kid from Scanton who beat the odds, the dedicated family man and committed Catholic who knows every conductor on that Amtrak train to Wilmington. That's the kind of fighter who I want by my side," Obama said.

Biden's Senate seat comes up in 2008. Delaware law allows him to run for reelection to the Senate and for president (or vice president) at the same time. If he becomes vice president, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner would appoint a replacement. If not, he's likely to have no trouble being reelected to the Senate. His electoral record has been strong. He was reelected by wide margins in 1978, 1984, 1990 and 1996. His 1996 opponent Raymond Clatworthy was a Naval Academy graduate, Marine aviator and businessman who walked, rode a bicycle and rollerbladed through the state, raised $1 million and questioned the sale of Biden's house to an executive of MBNA, the big credit card company whose top executives gave generously to Biden's campaign. Biden won 60%-38%. In 2002, Clatworthy ran again and raised $1.8 million: Evidently Biden has raised the hackles of many Republicans across the country, and you can raise money by direct mail against him. Clatworthy argued that he would support President Bush more fully on defense and foreign policy. This time the result was a little closer: Biden won 58%-41%, the same margin he had in 1978. He actually lost Kent County, which includes Dover, and only narrowly carried Sussex County. Together the two counties cast 37% of the state's votes, up from 33% in 1996. On Return Day, two days after the November 2006 election, he told Delaware reporters, "I've told the staff to prepare for a regular reelection campaign." Biden is one of 12 current incumbents who have spent more than half his life as a member of Congress.

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