Joe Biden

Biography of Joe Biden

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 47th vice president during the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. Prior to this, he was a senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009. Currently, Joe Biden is the 46th President of the United States as a member of the Democratic Party. Biden played a significant role in the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law.

Beginnins

Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is the oldest of four siblings born to Joseph R. Biden Sr., a car salesmanperson, and Catherine Eugenia Finnegan. He spent his early years in the suburbs of New Castle County and suffered from bullying due to his stutter. He attended Archmere Academy, in Claymont, graduating in 1961. After completing high school, he studied history and political science at the University of Delaware. He later pursued legal studies at Syracuse University School of Law, and in 1969, he began working as a lawyer in Wilmington, Delaware.

Joe Biden and Politics

As a member of the Democratic Party, Biden began his political career in the early 1970s. He was a member of the New Castle County Council (1970-1972) and in 1972 he ran for the Senate, being elected. That is how he arrived in Washington D.C. at the age of 29 as a senator for Delaware, becoming the fifth youngest senator in the history of the United States. For his outstanding work, he was reelected on five consecutive occasions: 1978, 1984, 1990, 1996 and 2002. He held the position until 2009, and was also the President of the Senate Judiciary Committee, between 1987 and 1995.

Biden played a significant role in the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, and was the author of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. In addition, he chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 2001 to 2003 and again in 2007 when the Democrats regained control of the Senate.

During the conflict in the Balkans, he made several trips to the region and his opinion was decisive for President Clinton to decide to use military force against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Biden supported the policies of George W. Bush in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks and voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq in 2002.

 

Candidacies and Vice Presidency

In 1987, Biden ran for the first time as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, relying on his popularity within the progressive group. However, he had to leave the campaign for health reasons. Biden was hospitalized in February 1988 due to two aneurysms; prior to this, he had been accused of plagiarism in an electoral speech.

His second campaign came in 2007, although he soon decided to withdraw due to the low probability he had in the polls. Shortly thereafter, he joined Barack Obama as a running mate and faced McCain and Sarah Palin in the presidential elections on November 4, 2008, in which the first African-American president of the United States was elected.

On January 20, 2009, he swore in as vice president of the United States. Throughout his term, Biden supported several measures and initiatives in favor of the working middle class, such as facilitating access to university, improving the quality of life through a sustainable economy, the law for recovery and reinvestment in the US industry and the protection of retirees’ pensions. However, he was moderate on issues such as gay marriage, the death penalty and abortion.

Biden was linked through the Wikileaks scandal to the policies of torture and indiscriminate killings in conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan during the administration of George W. Bush. However, he denied all the accusations and claimed that as president of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he requested that the use of force and related cases be monitored.

 

To the Presidency in 2020

After announcing his intention to run as a candidate for the presidency in 2019, Biden became the official candidate for the Democrats in August 2020. He chose Kamala Harris as his running mate, the first African-American and Asian-American senator in the United States. In the last months of the campaign, he fiercely faced off against President Donald Trump, winning the support of young people, the African-American community, and immigrants. Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election and became the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021.

 

Joe Biden’s Personal Life

In 1966, he married Neilia Hunter, with whom he had three children: Joseph (Beau), Robert and Naomi. His wife and daughter Naomi died in a tragic accident caused by a drunk driver shortly after he was elected senator in 1972. In 1977, he married Jill Tracy Jacobs, with whom he had his daughter Ashley. His son Beau (Joseph) died in 2015, after years of fighting cancer.