- Only two other members of Joe Biden's all-male freshman Senate class are still living.
- Democrats Dick Clark and James Abourezk are both in their early 90s, and left politics long ago.
After a half a century in federal politics, President Joe Biden has outlasted many of his political contemporaries.
Only two other members of his freshman Senate class, which was entirely male, are still living. Democrats Dick Clark and James Abourezk, who represented Iowa and South Dakota, respectively, are both in their early 90s, having long ago left politics, according to the US Senate Historical Office.
Before Biden became the oldest sitting president, he was known for being the sixth-youngest person elected to the Senate. Delaware voters first elected him to the US Senate in 1972, days before his 30th birthday.
His 11-member freshman class included the late Republicans Pete Domenici, who represented New Mexico until January 2009, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who served until January 2003. Six other members of that class — including Clark and Abourezk — only served one Senate term.
Clark lost his 1978 re-election bid and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be Ambassador at Large and United States Coordinator for Refugee Affairs 1979. He established the Aspen Institute Congressional Program in 1983, which hosts bipartisan breakfasts for lawmakers.
Abourezk, who didn't run for re-election, resumed his law practice, founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and began a writing career after the Senate. He recounted his experience with Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee in Advise & Dissent. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Abourezk wrote that he fought a bill by Biden and Sen. William Roth, a Delaware Republican, to block a federal court from ordering their state to use busing to desegregate schools – an issue that became problem for him during the 2020 Democratic primary campaign.
The Washington Free Beacon reported on the decades-old incident in 2019, noting the Biden bill had been described by Current Affairs as requiring judges to "tailor their court orders to remedy only the adverse effects of existing segregation."
"Biden leaned over to me, fire coming out of his eyes, 'Abourezk, you sonofabitch, if I ever vote for another one of your bills, it'll be a cold day in hell,'" Abourezk wrote.
Abourezk told him "calm down, Joe" and said he would eventually thank him, according to the book.
Biden, the book says, responded: "Like hell I will you dirty bastard."
Abourezk wrote that Biden, did, thank him days later. He loved the headlines in Delaware newspapers, saying Biden battled liberals in Washington.
"They love me back home," he quoted Biden as saying.