WITH 47 years in government, what has Joe Biden, former vice president and senator and now presidential candidate, accomplished?
This is a timely moment to talk facts about what the candidates have really done to help the American people live a better, more just and equitable life in their years as government officials, accorded with public trust and power of the position they hold.
After all, the commitment to serve the American people, and not to be served, should be the bedrock of why a person runs for public office.
The headlines from the past days have further revealed why our country and our people are in chaos and are deeply divided; why more than 189,000 Americans have been killed by the coronavirus pandemic; why the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider than ever; why the planet we will pass on to the next generations has been under continued threat; and why the fulfillment of the American dream as envisioned by the founding fathers has been elusive.
What we are going through right now is because of the failed leadership by the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. The reason why is not necessarily because he does not want to be a true leader and public servant in the very essence of the word. As Former President Barack Obama said during the Democratic National Convention, “Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.”
We have heard testaments from Trump’s own family who really know him. We have heard and read reactions from veterans themselves. Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who saved peoples’ lives from the crash of the plane in the Hudson River in New York in 2009, encapsulated what is required of a leader to be a true public servant so poignantly.
Aside from being a retired Air Force fighter pilot, Sullenberger is a veteran who volunteered for military service during wartime just like his father, whose generation he proudly said, “saved the world from fascism.”
“For the first time in American history, a president has repeatedly shown utter and vulgar contempt and disrespect for those who have served and died serving our country.
While I am not surprised, I am disgusted by the current occupant of the Oval Office. He has repeatedly and consistently shown himself to be completely unfit for and to have no respect for the office he holds.
He took an oath of office that is similar to the one that each person takes who enters the U.S. Military. But he has completely failed to uphold his oath.
Now we know why. He has admitted that he cannot comprehend the concept of service above self.”
Going back to Joe Biden. What has he done as a public servant for 47 years?
Joe Biden, who had a stuttering problem as a child, overcame this barrier and enrolled at the University of Delaware, where he double-majored in history and political science. He then went to Syracuse University, where he earned his law degree.
Biden served as a public defender (defense attorney) for Wilmington, Delaware from 1968 to 1970, helping the accused who do not have representation protect their constitutional rights.
From 1970-1972, Joe was on the New Castle County Council in Delaware, and his most notable accomplishment was his “fight against a massive 10-lane highway project that threatened to pave over Wilmington’s neighborhoods and push back on the oil companies building refineries on the Delaware coast.”
Biden was elected Senator in 1972 at the age of 29, and became one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate. Joe has served as Delaware’s longest-running senator, serving as Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1987-1995, and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2001-2003, and again on 2007-2009.
In 2008, President Barack Obama named Joe as his running mate, and was elected by the American people as the 47th Vice President of the United States. On January 20, 2009, he was sworn into office and served for two terms after being re-elected with Obama in 2012.
As his life as an elected public servant was just beginning, Joe experienced a grave loss when his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi were killed, and sons Hunter and Beau were critically injured in an auto accident in 1972.
Joe’s eldest son Beau, who served the country as attorney general of Delaware and as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, died in 2015 at the young age of 46 after battling brain cancer.
Joe’s life story reminds me of the story of Job in the bible. Job lost everything he had, became seriously ill, his wife left him — yet through these unimaginable losses, Job remained faithful to God.
Joe Biden is a Christian, a Catholic to be more precise, like many of us Filipinos.
Like Job, Joe’s faith in God remained strong even when he could and did not understand why God would allow these tragedies and afflictions to happen in his life. In fact, it was Joe’s faith in God that strengthened him and gave him the resolve to use his losses to find his purpose in life.
God fulfilled His promise in Job’s life. He granted Job “beauty for ashes.” God blessed Job for his trust and faithfulness to God’s will, for doing the right thing even when the wrong things were happening in his life. By the same mercy and grace, God rewarded Joe with a new wife and life partner in Jill, and more opportunities and a bigger platform to serve God’s people through Joe’s life in public service.
Joe Biden has been serving God through his service to the American people.
Since the early 70s, Joe has been fighting for the mantra “government of the people, for the people, by the people” to be a reality in America.
As shared on his campaign site, Joe has been doing this since his “first calls for the public financing of campaigns in the early 1970s. In the decades to come, he’ll continue to take action to restore and strengthen our democratic institutions, starting with protecting the right to vote.” Joe contended, “The United States Constitution says We the People. Not We the Donors.”
Biden helped in the efforts toward arms control for global peace and security.
“He led a delegation of senators to meet with Kremlin officials in Moscow to present U.S. conditions for the ratification of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks–SALT II. It is the beginning of his decades-long leadership on nuclear arms control and strategic security negotiations to keep the American people safe, prevent an unchecked nuclear arms race, and establish norms of international conduct. Later, as Vice President, he will be critical to Senate approval of the New START Treaty with Russia, which brings deployed strategic nuclear weapons by the two countries to the lowest level in history.”
“As Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, Senator Biden plays a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. He is at the forefront of issues and legislation related to ending Apartheid, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, post-Cold War Europe, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia.”
As a woman, I am most grateful for Joe in his fight on our behalf when he introduced the bill that addresses sexual assault and domestic violence in 1990, which was enacted into law as the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994 — “the landmark legislation that criminalizes violence against women, creates unprecedented resources for survivors of assault, and changes the national dialogue on domestic and sexual assault.”
Joe cares not just for this generation, but for the generations to come by introducing legislation to combat climate change.
“Joe calls for action to address climate change and protect the environment before it was a mainstream issue, introducing the Global Climate Protection Act. Later, as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, he organizes several hearings on climate change and rallies support on a number of non-binding resolutions on the issue, in an attempt to build momentum for action to address climate change.”
Biden has been working toward protecting the lives of the American people from the irresponsible and dangerous use of military-style weapons by civilians because of the influence of the powerful lobbyist National Rifle Association (NRA).
“Joe takes on the National Rifle Association and wins—twice. In 1993, he secures the passage of the Brady background check bill, ushering the bill through conference and defeating an NRA-supported filibuster. And in 1994, he champions the passage of bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
As vice president, Joe Biden was President Barack Obama’s partner in governance, continuing on and leading “interagency efforts, and works with Congress in his fight to raise the living standards of middle-class Americans, reduce gun violence, address violence against women, and end cancer as we know it.”
When Obama led the country in our recovery from the deepest recession since the Great Depression, which eventually paved the way for the biggest continuous job growth Trump only benefited from, Biden worked hard with the president.
“President Obama turns to Joe to first help pass and then oversee the implementation of the Recovery Act—the biggest economic recovery plan in the history of the nation and our biggest and strongest commitment to clean energy. The president’s plan prevents another Great Depression, creates and saves millions of jobs, and leads to 75 uninterrupted months of job growth by the end of the Administration, which has continued until today.
And Joe did it all with less than 1% in waste, abuse or fraud—the most efficient government program in our country’s history.”
Like Obama, Joe believed ALL Americans should have access to health care, not just a privileged few.
“President Obama and Joe secure the 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 banned insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.”
Joe believed that in this country, all men are created equal, even in choosing whom to love, and should therefore be accorded the same rights and protections provided for in the Constitution.
“Vice President Biden vocally supports marriage equality for LGBTQ individuals at a time when most political pundits said it wasn’t a good idea. He later shows the same leadership by expressing early support for the Equality Act.”
He worked with President Obama to fight against gun violence.
“After 26 first-graders and educators are killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Joe leads an effort to take more than two dozen actions to make our schools and communities safer, including improving the gun background check system and narrowing the gun show loophole.”
He used his pain and grief when he lost his son to cancer to help other people fight against cancer.
“In his final State of the Union address, President Obama asks Joe to head up a new national effort to end cancer as we know it—he ends up calling it his ‘Cancer Moonshot,’ with the goal of making a decade’s worth of advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in five years.”
THESE are but a few of his accomplishments. Indeed, Joe Biden has earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction — the nation’s highest civilian honor — given to him by President Barack Obama.
Yes, the 24/7 news cycle can be overwhelming. But it’s too important of an election to sit out if you have the privilege of being a voter in America.
To learn more about candidates running for office, visit their websites, revisit news articles, and watch videos of what candidates actually said and did to separate facts from misinformation. Their personal lives, responses to crises, judgment calls and their vision will help us get to know the candidates’ values and character better, and will lead us in our discernment on whom to vote for come this November.
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
