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Last Updated June 22, 2005
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 the suburbs of Wilmington in a middle class home; his father was a car salesman and 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; he is now one of the Senate's most fluent orators. He married and started a family while still in law school. After school he moved back to the Wilmington suburbs, practiced law, and in 1970, at 27, was elected to the New Castle County Council. In 1972 he ran for the Senate against a popular incumbent who seemed ready to retire, while this young challenger had energy, an attractive extended family and an ability to connect with voters' emotions. He won 51%-49%. A month later his wife and daughter were killed in an auto accident; his two young sons were injured. He thought about resigning, but was persuaded to serve, 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. He remains a familiar figure in, and one familiar with, his constituency (and to Amtrak employees). 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, which he chaired from 1987-95 and served as ranking Democrat on from 1981-87 and 1995-97. The issues that arise here--abortion, flag-burning, capital punishment, crime control--cut deeply, and for years the cultural liberals in the Democratic Party differed sharply on most of them from the constituents Biden saw in Delaware every day. As chairman, Biden presided over the most contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings in history. In his 1987 hearings, nominee Robert Bork set a high standard for intellectual seriousness, but some of his opponents used his candor to vote against him, from which Biden's attempts to construct an honestly based, anti-Bork rationale proved politically indistinguishable; no other nominee since has testified so frankly. The 1991 hearings on Clarence Thomas exploded when someone leaked charges of sexual harassment by Anita Hill against the nominee. Biden was bitterly criticized for covering up this information, but 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 though, Hill and then Thomas testified to fascinated television audiences; Thomas was confirmed, over Biden's opposition. In the middle of the Bork hearings came a climactic moment for Biden, who in 1987 started running for president. He hoped to inspire a new generation as John Kennedy had inspired his. But Biden decided to leave the race when a Michael Dukakis staffer leaked an ''attack video'' showing similarities between Biden's stump speech about his background and a speech by British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Paraphrasing someone else's words is not a political crime--most political discourse is conducted in familiar shorthand terms--but Biden in dramatizing his background actually distorted it, for unlike Kinnock he did not rise from working class roots, and unlike in Britain, upward social mobility is a common experience in the United States. In 1988, Biden was stricken by an aneurysm on the night of the New Hampshire primary; he was rushed to the hospital and nearly died, but has 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, just as the religious right has been in the Republican 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. He has been 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 there were two contentious issues blocking 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 Charles Schumer's amendment making fines incurred by anti-abortion protesters undischargeable 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. "This bill establishes unprecedented protections for child support and alimony, making bankruptcy part of the enforcement system for women and children, who now will be at the head of the line, in front of every other creditor. Is this bill perfect? No. But over several congresses it has earned the kind of bipartisan consensus only balanced legislation can achieve." 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. Biden has weighed in on another sports institution, the BCS college football bowl system. Biden became ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee in 1997 and chairman in June 2001. To the surprise of many, he entered into a constructive working relationship with Chairman Jesse Helms. 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 Biden became chairman of Foreign Relations in June 2001 and America was attacked on September 11. In the weeks following the attack Biden praised Bush for being "patient, resolute and cautious." In October some Republicans attacked him when he told the Council on Foreign Relations that the bombing campaign in Afghanistan "plays into every stereotypical criticism of us that we're this high-tech bully that thinks from the air we can do whatever we want to do." But Biden was not endorsing that criticism, rather he was calling for ground troops to be sent in soon, as indeed they were. 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" Saddam Hussein and that "probably" it means war with Iraq. He conferred frequently with Secretary of State Colin Powell and pushed for the U.S. 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 were working to bring forward a resolution that would authorize the president to take action to remove weapons of mass destruction, but not Saddam Hussein himself, only after exhausting diplomatic options. Bush opposed this, and forestalled Biden and Lugar by getting agreement on terms of a resolution from Trent Lott, Dennis Hastert and Richard Gephardt. Biden voted for it in October 2002. Biden continued to campaign against missile defense and opposed abrogation of the ABM Treaty. But Bush's withdrawal from the treaty did not prevent the May 2002 nuclear disarmament treaty, which Biden hailed as "an important step forward." Biden traveled widely as chairman and seems 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 he does not, of course, have as much power as he did as chairman. But he has worked closely with the new chairman, Richard Lugar, and has said that he and Lugar are in agreement on a great many issues. Biden was often critical of the administration performance on Iraq. In June 2003 he said Bush should "level with the American people" about the cost and length of the Iraq commitment; he 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," and mentioned Dick Cheney. "Neoconservatives seem to have captured the heart and mind of the president and they're controlling the foreign policy agenda [which] puts a premium on the use of unilateralist power. … I disagree with those in my own party who have not yet faced the reality of the post-9/11 world and believe we can only exercise power if we act multilaterally." With John Kerry, he sponsored the measure to increase taxes on the top 1% to pay for the $87 billion Iraq supplemental, but unlike Kerry he voted for it in October 2003. 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. After disclosure of the Abu Ghraib abuses, he said that the U.S. should release every prisoner it could and "bulldoze down that damn prison." In June 2004 he sponsored a resolution, adopted by voice vote, calling on the U.S. to create a democracy caucus at the United Nations. Biden has urged caution on Iran and has called for the U.S. to engage in unilateral negotiations with North Korea and seek a non-aggression pact. Biden remains an everyday figure in Delaware and has tended to its most local needs. He has worked to protect Dover Air Force Base and its C-5s and C-17s against closing. 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. And naturally he has supported Amtrak funding. On his daily commutes, he has come to know the Amtrak crew members personally and hosts an annual Christmas dinner for the crews. Biden's most visible gift is an articulateness that can verge on the mellifluous; he can inspire, but can also drone on at great length (being elected a senator at 29 does not curb a tendency to verbosity). But this has not reduced the appreciation most Delawareans have for his admirable personal qualities. He was re-elected by wide margins in 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. But 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 George W. Bush more fully on defense and foreign policy and called for $1,500 child tax credits and individual investment accounts in Social Security. 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. Will Biden run for president? It was a question raised in the runups to 1992, 2000 and 2004. He made little move to run in 1992 or 2000. In January 2003 he said he would decide by fall 2003. In early August he said he was confident he could beat George W. Bush. But on August 11 he announced he was not running. Biden said he was not sure he could raise $9 million by January; as it turned out, Howard Dean raised far more money, in large part through the Internet, while Biden was likely expecting to rely on traditional Democratic contributors. In 2004 Biden campaigned for John Kerry, 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, but said he liked serving in the Senate. But he said in June 2005 that he plans to run for president in 2008. "My intention is to seek the nomination," he said on Face the Nation. "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."
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