Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden moved with his family to Delaware in 1953.
He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and the U.S. Senate in 1972. As a senator, Biden drafted and led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act. He oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork .
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since 1983. In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has “a pandemic for those who haven’t gotten the vaccination” and that it was therefore “gigantically important” for Americans to be vaccinated.
In 2022, Biden endorsed a change to the Senate filibuster to allow for the passing of the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Act, on both of which the Senate had failed to invoke cloture. The rules change failed when two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, joined Senate Republicans in opposing it. In April 2022, Biden signed into law the bipartisan Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 to revamp the finances and operations of the United States Postal Service agency.
In the summer of 2022, several other pieces of legislation Biden supported passed Congress. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act aimed to address gun reform issues following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The act’s gun control provisions include extended background checks for gun purchasers under 21, clarification of Federal Firearms License requirements, funding for state red flag laws and other crisis intervention programs, further criminalization of arms trafficking and straw purchases, and partial closure of the boyfriend loophole. Biden signed the bill on June 25, 2022.
The Honoring our PACT Act of 2022 was introduced in 2021 and signed into law by Biden on August 10, 2022. The act intends to significantly improve healthcare access and funding for veterans who were exposed to toxic substances, including burn pits, during military service. On October 6, 2022, Biden pardoned all Americans convicted of “small” amounts of cannabis possession under federal law.
On December 22, 2023, he pardoned Americans of cannabis use or possession on federal lands regardless of whether they had been charged or prosecuted. Two months after his first round of pardons, he signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and requires the federal government to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial marriages.In June 2024, Biden issued an executive action offering amnesty to unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens.
The program includes a pathway to U.S. residency and citizenship and is expected to initially affect about 500,000 people.
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