Joe Biden

About Joe Biden

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Wilmington, Delaware. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and is currently serving his sixth term. Biden has served for the sixth-longest period among current Senators (fourth among Democrats) and is Delaware's longest-serving Senator. He is the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in the 110th Congress. Biden has served in that position in the past, and he has served as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election, but dropped out after the caucuses in Iowa on January 3, 2008. Biden has been named as a possible vice-presidential candidate for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama for the 2008 general election.

Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph R. Biden, Sr. and Catherine Eugenia Finnegan. He was the first of four siblings and proudly identifies with his Irish Catholic heritage. Joe has two brothers, James Brian Biden and Francis W. Biden; and a sister, Valerie Biden (Owens). The Biden family moved to Delaware when Biden was 10 years old, and he grew up in suburban New Castle County, Delaware, where his father was a car salesman. In 1961, Biden graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware and, in 1965, from the University of Delaware in Newark. He then attended Syracuse University College of Law, graduated in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.

In 1966, while in law school, Biden married Neilia Hunter. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi. His wife and infant daughter died in a car accident shortly after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. His two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were seriously injured in the accident, but both eventually made full recoveries. Biden was sworn into office from their bedside. Persuaded not to resign in order to care for them, Biden began the practice of commuting an hour and a half each day on the train from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, DC, which he continues to do.