Nicole Gaudiano

USA TODAY

Bipartisan agreement will play out on the Senate floor next week when both Democrats and Republicans pay tribute to Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden will attend the hour-long tribute on the afternoon of Dec. 7, his spokeswoman Meghan Dubyak confirmed Tuesday. He represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years before moving to the White House, and he has served as the administration’s point man for negotiating deals on fiscal issues in the Senate.

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who now holds Biden’s former Senate seat, asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell months ago to schedule the tribute, according to McConnell spokesman Don Stewart.

McConnell “agreed on the spot,” Stewart said.

Along with McConnell and Coons, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., will participate, according to Coons’ office.

Coons told Politico the tribute will be “a celebration of his next chapter in public service.”

“I don’t think we’re going to have a public life without Joe Biden,” Coons told Politico. “I am very hopeful that he will remain a very strong, very effective voice in Washington, internationally and in Delaware.”