The Indian Awaaz Web Desk
Joe Robinette Biden is the president-elect of the United States. Earlier he also served as vice president of the country 2008-2016, under Barack Obama.
Let us know about his journey from a small house on North Washington Avenue to the White House, the powerhouse of the USA.
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. popularly known as Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden, Sr.. He is first of four children.
When Joe was 10 years old, the Biden family move to Claymont, Delaware, to look for a better job. It becomes the state that Joe calls home.
“During my teenage and college years, men and women were changing the country: Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and I was swept away by eloquence, conviction, and the sheer size of their improbable dreams.”, says Joe.
Joe Family-
Joe marries Neilia Hunter at St. Mary’s of Lake in Skaneateles, New York. In the next few years, they will have three children together: Joseph R. “Beau” Biden, III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi Christina
The first campaign.
Joe practices as an attorney at a Wilmington firm while working part-time as a public defender. Later that year, he launches his first campaign for New Castle County Council, which he won by 2,000 votes.
Joe stands up for the little boy and never stops
As a member of the New Castle County Council, Joe fights a massive 10-lane highway project that threatened to pave Wilmington neighborhoods and takes on oil companies building refineries on the Delaware coast.
“Too often we have allowed our differences to prevail among us. Too often we have allowed ambitious men to confront those differences for political gain. Too often we hide behind our differences rather than push ourselves beyond them.” – Joe Biden, announcing his candidacy for the United States Senate, 1972.
Victory turns into tragedy.
At age 29, Joe becomes one of the youngest people ever to be elected to the United States Senate. Weeks later, tragedy strikes the Biden family when Neilia and Naomi die and Hunter and Beau are seriously injured in a car accident.
A young voice in the Senate.
A black and white photo of Joe Biden standing on a stage while smiling. He is leaning down to touch the hands of those standing in the crowd.
The 120 mile journey.
Joe takes the oath in the United States Senate next to his children’s hospital beds, and begins commuting daily from Wilmington to Washington, first by car and then by train, so he can put his children to bed at night and watch them wake in the morning. He continues to do so during his time in the Senate. For five years, Joe raises Beau and Hunter as a single father, with the help of his sister Valerie and her family.
An early voice for campaign finance reform.
Joe first asked for public funding for political campaigns in the early 1970s. In the decades to come, he will continue to take steps to restore and strengthen our democratic institutions, starting with protecting the right to vote.
Joe marries Jill Jacobs
Beau and Hunter tell their dad it’s time to ask Jill Jacobs, then a high school English teacher, to get married. They were married at the United Nations Chapel in New York City in 1977. Jill left teaching to become a full-time mother, and in 1980, her family was completed with the birth of Ashley Blazer, named after her siblings. As a lifelong educator, Jill earns her doctorate in education and returns to teaching as an English teacher at a community college in Virginia.
A leader on gun control
Biden leads a delegation of senators meeting with Kremlin officials in Moscow to present US conditions for ratification of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks – SALT II. It is the beginning of his decades-long leadership on nuclear weapons control and strategic security negotiations to keep the country safe, prevent the proliferation of uncontrolled nuclear weapons, and establish standards of international conduct. Later, as vice president, he was indispensable in the approval of the New Treaty with Russia – START – by the Senate, which reduces the strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the two countries, to the lowest level in history.
One of the first climate change bills.
Joe calls for action to tackle climate change and protect the environment before it was a matter of public domain, by introducing the Global Climate Protection Act. Later, as chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he organizes several hearings on climate change, enlisting support for a series of non-binding resolutions on the subject, in an attempt to generate momentum to carry out actions that address climate change. .
As chairman or senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 16 years, Joe is widely recognized for his work on the drafting and leadership of the Violence Against Women Act and blocking the nominations of Jeff Sessions and Robert Bork to court.
Facing the NRA.
Joe takes on the National Rifle Association and wins twice. In 1993, he secured passage of the Brady Background Check Bill, carrying the bill through conference and defeating an NRA-backed obstruction. And in 1994, he defended the ban on assault weapons and large capacity drums.
Address the scourge of violence against women.
At a time when gender-based violence is still considered a “family issue,” Joe writes and spearheads the Violence Against Women Act, landmark legislation that criminalizes violence against women, creates unprecedented resources for assault survivors and changes the national dialogue on domestic and sexual assaults.
As chairman or senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, then-Senator Biden plays a critical role in shaping US foreign policy. It is at the forefront of affairs and legislation related to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, post-Cold War Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
“He is a foreign policy expert whose heart and values are firmly rooted in the middle class. He has glared at dictators and has spoken out on behalf of America’s police and firefighters. He is well suited to be my partner as we work for redirect our country. “
– Barack Obama, introducing Joe Biden as his ballot partner.
A ballot companion becomes a friend for life.
In a speech in Springfield, Illinois, Barack Obama announces Joe as his running mate. In the months and years to come, they become good friends and their families grow closer.
The 47th Vice President of the United States.
Joe Biden stands at a podium with the Vice Presidential seal on it on Inauguration Day. Jill Biden is standing to the side behind him.
As Vice President, Joe continues his leadership on important issues facing the nation, representing our country abroad, traveling more than 1.2 million miles to more than 50 countries. Vice President Biden convenes sessions of the President’s Cabinet, leads interagency efforts, and works with Congress in their fight to raise the standard of living for middle-class Americans, to reduce gun violence, to address violence against women and to end cancer as we know it.
The largest economic recovery plan in the history of the United States.
President Obama turns to Joe to first help him pass, and then oversee implementation, of the Recovery Act, the largest economic recovery plan in the nation’s history and our largest and strongest commitment to energy. clean. The president’s plan prevents another Great Depression, creates and saves millions of jobs, and leads to 75 months of uninterrupted job growth until the end of the Administration, which has continued to this day. And Joe did it all with less than 1% in waste, abuse or fraud, the most efficient government program in our nation’s history.
President Obama and Joe secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, which will have reduced the number of uninsured Americans by 20 million by the time they leave office and prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.