National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute to an incredible leader, public servant, mentor, and friend.

It seems impossible to place a period on the public service career of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

So perhaps this is just an ellipsis.

For 36 years, Joe Biden was a towering presence in this body. As a member, ranking member, and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he dove headfirst into the most challenging issues in a volatile world, shaping a generation of U.S. foreign policy. He tackled arms control issues, stood up directly to Slobodan Milosevic, fought against apartheid in South Africa, and strongly advocated for NATO bombing of Serbia in the 1990s. He once called his contribution to ending the Yugoslav wars one of the ``proudest moments'' of his political career. For years, he worked to shape our policy in Iraq and the Middle East. He did so not just from his Washington office, but through regular visits to warzones, where he met face to face with military leaders and enlisted men and women, alike. This is Joe Biden's legacy.

As a member and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Biden spearheaded the Federal assault weapons ban, presided over Supreme Court confirmations, and--in perhaps his most significant legislative triumph--authored the Violence Against Women Act.

For generations, violence against women was a private matter--a tragedy suffered over and over by women with no recourse against abusive partners. VAWA brought this scourge out of the shadows and into the open, affirming that domestic violence survivors would NOT also be victimized by the system that was supposed to protect them. Because of VAWA, which Senator Biden helped reauthorize three times, 3.4 million women and men have called the National Domestic Violence Hotline and gotten the support they need.

From 1994, when VAWA became law, until 2010, the rate of domestic violence in the United States has fallen by 64 percent. These are real accomplishments and real people--not just statistics. This is Joe Biden's legacy.

And, as everyone knows, he did it all commuting daily from and to his beloved Delaware.

Then he got a job that included accommodation in Washington, DC.

Joe Biden has transformed the job of Vice President. A key liaison to Congress because of his years of relationships on the Hill, Joe Biden stood shoulder to shoulder with President Obama and brought our economy back from the brink. Vice President Biden was tasked with implementing and overseeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which laid the foundation for a sustainable economic future we are experiencing today.

He also tackled longer term economic challenges, traveling the country in support of American manufacturing jobs and working tirelessly to rein in the exorbitant cost of college and spiraling student loan debt. Joe Biden believes in his bones that all Americans deserve a fair shot.

That is why he was an early advocate for marriage equality. He accelerated change, forcing a conversation that, at its heart, was about love and the simple premise of all men and women being equal.

His belief in a fair shot for all is why Vice President Biden devoted incredible energy after the Sandy Hook shooting to sparing other families the heartbreak felt by too many in Newtown. Some of the most challenging days of the Obama administration were days of mass shootings.

Aurora, San Bernardino, Orlando, Fort Hood, Charleston, Tucson, and of course Newtown--to anyone who has been active in the push for commonsense gun safety measures--as I have--the Vice President's steady hand, commitment, and leadership in this space have been obvious. Along with the President, he has comforted families, devoted countless hours to healing, and contributed energy and ideas to a years-long push that will eventually affect real change and keep the most lethal weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people.

And that will be Joe Biden's legacy.

Vice President Joe Biden was taught early on by his parents that hard work mattered, that how you treat others matters, and above all else that family matters most. Throughout his career, he had a rule in his office: if one of his children, his wife Jill, or a sibling called, staff was to pull him out of a meeting so he could take the call. The same rule extended to staff. He never wanted to hear that someone had stayed at work instead of making it to a graduation, Little League game, or school play.

That, laid bare, is Joe Biden. He came to Washington on the shoulders of his family, which fanned out across Delaware and knocked on doors until there were no more doors to knock. When tragedy struck--between his improbable election victory and his swearing in--and he suffered the unimaginable loss of his wife and infant daughter, his family pulled him closer. He stayed by the hospital beds of his two sons, Beau and Hunter, and nursed them back to health, questioning all along whether he would ever serve in the Senate.

But this body--this Senate--pulled him closer, too. Senators Inouye, Mansfield, Humphrey, Hollings, and Kennedy all pleaded with him to give the Senate a chance: ``Just six months, Joe. Just stay six months.'' He stayed 36 years. And he learned lessons about character and motives--lessons we are all still learning today. He learned from Mike Mansfield never to question another man's motive--question his judgment but never his motive. It was a lesson that bridged divides that too often keep us apart. The lesson made for lasting friendships with Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond--whose eulogy he delivered.

Joe Biden arrived in the Senate after a 1972 campaign heavy on civil rights. Years later, the centerpiece in his Senate office was a large table that had belonged to Senator John Stennis, around which Senator Richard Russell and Southern segregationists had planned the demise of the civil rights movement. In 2009, Joe Biden became Vice President to our first African-American President.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it does indeed bend toward justice.

We have not seen the end of Joe Biden. Just this week, he presided over this body as we took an important step toward realizing the dream of the Cancer Moonshot--an ambitious project to end cancer as we know it.
It is another effort that has profound personal meaning to the Vice President, who lost his son Beau to this horrible disease. It is also a place where Joe Biden's work will have lasting, indelible effect on Americans--indeed all of humanity--if he is successful.

And that is Joe Biden's legacy.

He brought people together. He tackled the impossible. He overcame obstacles. He bridged divides. Tireless and fierce, Joe Biden put family and country first. We cannot ask for more than that.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I never had the privilege of serving with you in this Chamber, but, like many of my colleagues, I have come to know you as a friend and public servant and a model and a mentor. I have barely enough time to say a few words of tribute here, but I will add more to my remarks on the Record.

What I want to say very simply is that you have inspired so many of us, beyond this Chamber, beyond the people whom you have known directly, and beyond the people with whom you have worked. Countless young people are involved in this noble profession because of your example.

At a time when public officials and politics are often held in little repute and often challenged in their integrity, you have given us a good name, you have given politics a good name, and you have enabled so many of us to serve with pride in a profession that is so vital to the continuance of our democracy. Beyond pieces of legislation, whether it is the Violence Against Women Act or the assault weapon ban or criminal justice--the list goes on--is that model of public service.

I want to close by saying that as long as I have known Joe Biden, I really came to know him through the eyes of his son. I had the honor of working and serving with Beau Biden when he was attorney general of the State of Delaware and I was attorney general of my State of Connecticut. My ambition in life is to have my four children talk about me with the sense of admiration and love and pride that Beau Biden talked about his dad.

I am very proud and grateful that we had the opportunity to vote today on a law that bears his name. As proud as his dad is of him, his pride in his dad is an example that all of us as parents hope our children have for us.

I am proud to be in this Chamber and to have been sworn in to this Chamber by you, Mr. Vice President. I hope our paths will continue to cross, as I know they will, with so many of us in this Chamber and in this country. Thank you for your service.

I yield the floor.

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