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Posted: June 14, 2007 6:00 AM
Biden Puts Campaign on Hold to Focus on Senate Work
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With the Senate in session, Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden scaled back his presidential campaign schedule.

“He’s at his day job this week,” a campaign staffer said.

Biden did, however, secure a labor endorsement on Thursday from the Delaware AFL-CIO. “Sen. Joe Biden is labor’s favorite son and he has been loyal to labor his entire career in the United States Senate,” said Sam Latham, president of the Delaware AFL-CIO in a statement. “We proudly and unanimously support Sen. Biden’s nomination for president and appreciate his commitment to America’s working women and men.”

The statement cited Biden’s support for the Employee Free Choice Act, the Healthy Families Act, a minimum wage increase, and other legislative measures to “protect the health and safety” of U.S. workers.

Meanwhile, Biden’s sister Valerie Biden Owens and son, Beau Biden, the attorney general of Delaware, are trying to rally voters on the campaign trail. As the national chairwoman of Biden for President, Valerie Biden Owens is touring Iowa Wednesday through Friday.

Following Biden’s strong statements on the Darfur crisis during a June 3 debate in Manchester, N.H., the senator sent a letter to President Bush, saying the United States must ensure that the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission receives the critical military equipment it requires, and urged him to maintain pressure on Sudan to keep its agreement to the deployment of the hybrid force.

And on Thursday, Biden — backed by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and GOP presidential hopeful Sam Brownback, R-Kan. — introduced a resolution calling on the United States to support the so-called Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq, a five-point proposal with the goal of achieving a “sustainable political settlement.”