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President Joseph Biden

President of the United States

Biden is President of the United States and is a Democrat. He has served since Jan 20, 2021. Biden’s current term ends on Jan 20, 2025. He is 81 years old.

He was previously Vice President of the United States as a Democrat from 2009 to Jan 20, 2017; and a senator from Delaware as a Democrat from 1973 to Jan 15, 2009.

Photo of President Joseph Biden [D]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Biden is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2008 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Biden sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 2003 to Dec 11, 2008. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Biden was the primary sponsor of 42 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 42 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Biden sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (19%) Crime and Law Enforcement (18%) International Affairs (17%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Economics and Public Finance (10%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%) Health (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Biden recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Biden voted Yea

Veto Overridden 80/14 on Jun 18, 2008.

Biden voted Not Voting

Bill Passed 79/14 on Dec 14, 2007.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Pub.L. 110–234, H.R. 2419, 122 Stat. 923, enacted May 22, 2008, also known as the 2008 U.S. …

Biden voted Yea

Missed Votes

From Jan 1973 to Jan 2009, Biden missed 1,781 of 14,556 roll call votes, which is 12.2%. This is much worse than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jan 2009. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office. Legislators running for president or vice president typically miss votes while on the campaign trail — that’s normal. See our analysis of presidential candidates’ missed votes.

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Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: