Joseph Biden
Joseph BidenAKA Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
Born: 20-Nov-1942
Birthplace: Scranton, PA
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Politician
Party Affiliation: Democratic
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: US Senator from Delaware
Joe Biden has represented Delaware in the US Senate since Nixon was President. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970, and two years later he ran for the US Senate, promising "morality in government" and strongly opposing the Vietnam War. He defeated incumbent Republican J. Caleb Boggs a few weeks before his 30th birthday, and has been a Senator more than half his life. He is Barack Obama's running mate in 2008 presidential election.
Biden was a candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, but his campaign was derailed when he was caught using plagiarized sections from a British politician's speech in his own speeches, including first-person descriptions that were not applicable to Biden's life. Biden said he had simply forgotten to mention that he was quoting someone else. Months later, after complaining of recurring headaches, he underwent surgery for two near-fatal brain aneurysms.
He is a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he voted against confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts. He wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which federalized domestic violence as a crime. He was a proponent of the 2005 charges to bankruptcy law which made filing bankruptcy much more difficult. He voted for the PATRIOT Act in 2001, then argued against renewing it in 2005, before voting for legislation that generally renewed the PATRIOT Act's powers in 2006.
Biden is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and sharply criticized other Democrats who were less supportive or opposed. More recently he has called for "decentralizing" Iraq, a plan that he says would give of its major ethnic groups semi-autonomy, and called for more of a US military presence there.
For decades Biden has been at the forefront of the war on drugs, supporting new prohibitions against methamphetamine, Ecstasy, steroids used by athletes, and other new drugs as they became popular. Biden wrote the legislation that created the position of a national "Drug Czar", and his Anti-Drug Proliferation Act provides 20-year prison sentences for club owners, concert promoters, and people who throw parties in their home, if "drug use" takes place in such settings.
He wholeheartedly supported the actions of federal agents in the Waco standoff, and visibly sneered at witnesses in Senate hearings who questioned agents' acts. He was a key proponent of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, which banned some kinds of semiautomatic rifles, with a sunset provision that allowed these weapons to become legal again ten years later. The law also allocated substantial funds for construction of new prisons, established boot camps for delinquent minors, and brought the death penalty for crimes related to drug dealing, civil-rights related murders, murder of a Federal officer, and acts classified as terrorism.
Biden was among those who called for an investigation into the security lapse that allowed a male prostitute with no journalistic credentials to attend Presidential press conferences under an assumed name, as Jeff Gannon, for two years. Later, however, Biden declined to sign on to the proposed inquiry, which never happened.
Over his long career in politics, Biden's biggest financial supporter has been the credit card company MBNA, which has since been swallowed by Bank of America. His son, Hunter Biden, was hired as a management trainee at MBNA straight out of law school, and was quickly promoted to executive vice president. The younger Biden has since left MBNA to establish his own lawyer-and-lobbying firm, but still receives a $100,000 per year consulting fee from the bank. In 2006, Hunter Biden was appointed by President Bush to a five-year term on the Amtrak Reform Board.
Father: Joseph Robinette Biden, Sr. (auto dealer, b. 13-Nov-1915, d. 2-Sep-2002)
Mother: Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden ("Jean", b. 1918, m. 1941)
Brother: James Brian Biden
Sister: Valerie Biden Owens (PR exec and manager of Biden's campaigns)
Brother: Francis W. Biden (Director, Office of Congressional, Legislative, and Public Affairs)
Wife: Neilia Hunter Biden (college sweetheart, m. 1966, d. 18-Dec-1972 car crash)
Son: Joseph R. Biden III ("Beau", Attorney General of Delaware)
Son: R. Hunter Biden (lawyer-lobbyist)
Daughter: Naomi Christina Biden ("Amy", b. 1971, d. 18-Dec-1972 car crash)
Wife: Jill Jacobs Biden (m. 17-Jun-1977, one daughter)
Daughter: Ashley Blazer Biden (b. 8-Jun-1981)
High School: Archmere Academy, Claymont, DE (1961)
University: BA History and Political Science, University of Delaware (1965)
Law School: JD, Syracuse University Law School (1968)
Teacher: Constitutional Law, Widener University School of Law (1981-)
US Senator, Delaware (1973-)
Alfalfa Club 2002
American Bar Association
Association of Trial Lawyers of America
Close Up Foundation Board of Advisors
National Student Leadership Conference Honorary Board of Advisors
Obama for America
Aneurysm two
Roast: Bob Schieffer (2004)
Funeral: Tom Lantos (2008)
Funeral: Jesse Helms (2008)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Tanner on Tanner (5-Oct-2004) Himself |
