The revisiting of former Vice President Joe Biden’s handling of Anita Hill's allegations in 1991 has offered other potential Democratic candidates a wide opening as they jockey for position ahead of the 2020 campaign. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo Politics Biden confronts the ghost of Anita Hill ‘It’s not going to be something he can charm out of. I think in 2018, you can’t just smile it away,’ said one Democrat.

Joe Biden began the month by kissing foreheads and preaching unity at a breezy Labor Day march in Pittsburgh. He will end it under question about whether his decades-old record in Congress can withstand the withering scrutiny of the current political moment.

With a sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh roiling Washington, Biden’s handling of a similar matter — the Anita Hill hearings — has erupted back into public view, exposing a rare point of weakness for Biden in the run-up to the 2020 presidential campaign.


It’s an issue that can’t easily be sidestepped in the post-Obama era Democratic Party, where the conversation surrounding sexual harassment is light years beyond where it was in the early 1990s when Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the grass-roots energy is in the progressive wing. If the former vice president decides to run, he’ll have to navigate a field that could exceed 20 challengers — almost none of whom will be burdened with the baggage of seemingly ancient political and culture wars.

Toi Hutchinson, president of the National Association of State Legislators and an Illinois Democratic state senator who helped launch a statewide #MeToo awareness effort, said Biden will face a tough road with the 2020 electorate if he doesn’t address the Hill hearings straight on.

“He in particular is going to have to find a way to connect to women voters and say, ‘This is what we have learned [since Biden’s time as Judiciary chairman]’, said Hutchinson, who wasn’t yet born when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972. “It’s not going to be something he can charm out of. I think in 2018, you can’t just smile it away. I think what [Biden] does best is when he goes straight up the middle, takes it on directly. I don’t think there’s any other way. It offers an opportunity to look people square in the eye and take on this issue directly. And I think women in this country will respond to his directness.”

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Now a front-runner in early Democratic primary polls, Biden was pilloried at the time for his handling of the 1991 confirmation hearings of then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Thomas was accused by Hill of inappropriate sexual behavior, and Biden was criticized for failing to blunt attacks on Hill and for not calling witnesses who could have supported her.

“It certainly was not his best moment,” said former Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), one of seven Democratic women who dramatically marched to the room where Senate Democrats were caucusing in 1991 in an attempt to make their case for why the vote on Thomas should be delayed as a result of Hill's accusations. “To have railroaded that through and not listened to the other three women and let his colleagues absolutely tear her apart was absolutely horrible.”

Schroeder said, “I don’t think people will be happy about it, the more they think about it. A lot of people probably forgot about it, but this brings it all fresh to mind again. We can all say the Republicans are messing up, but guess who messed up first?”

Biden’s management of the Hill testimony in Thomas' confirmation hearings has long loomed in the background of his political biography, viewed as a weakness when he considered a presidential run in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, the eventual nominee. But two years later, the weight of the #MeToo movement has only intensified the spotlight on politicians’ handling of issues related to sexual harassment and misconduct.

In an interview with Elle , published Tuesday, Hill noted that Biden last year acknowledged he owed her an apology. But he never took the next step.

“‘He said, ‘I owe her an apology.’ People were asking, ‘When are you going to apologize to her?’”’ Hill told Elle of Biden. “It’s become sort of a running joke in the household when someone rings the doorbell and we’re not expecting company. ‘Oh,’ we say, ‘is that Joe Biden coming to apologize?’”

Asked whether she was still waiting for Biden’s apology, Hill said: “There are more important things to me now than hearing an apology from Joe Biden. I’m OK with where I am.”

Patti Solis Doyle, who served as Biden’s campaign chief of staff in 2008, called the former vice president one of the most viable potential 2020 candidates in the Democratic field. Still, she acknowledged that if Biden doesn't apologize directly and put the matter behind him quickly, the issue threatens to hang over him in 2020, when the #MeToo issues are likely to play a prominent role in the presidential debate.

“If Anita Hill believes she’s owed an apology, then she’s owed an apology, without question. And he should give one,” Solis Doyle said. “Certainly, Joe Biden did not do the harassing. Joe Biden ended up voting against Clarence Thomas. But what was done to Anita Hill in those hearings … it was unseemly. And as chair of the Judiciary back then, he probably should have taken a bigger role in making Anita Hill feel safe and comfortable, and clearly, she did not feel that way.”

Solis Doyle said Biden would have an easier time touting his record on women’s issues and connecting with the surge of women voters if he put the matter to rest.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a disqualifying issue for Joe Biden, but he should address it and he should apologize,” she said. “What is happening with the very credible and serious allegations against Judge Kavanaugh has brought this to the forefront of our politics. I think if Judge Kavanaugh gets [confirmed], it will be a topic of discussion in the midterm elections … thereby making it a topic of discussion in 2020.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who lobbied the Senate on Hill’s behalf along with Schroeder in 1991, said the injustice of the Anita Hill hearings “wasn’t Biden alone” and that while Biden will be “examined for it” in 2020, he will also be credited for his work on the Violence Against Women Act, among other issues.

“I’m not sure the public will hold this against him given his apologies, and his advice from his own experience,” she said.

Norton said the Kavanaugh hearings may signal a broader shift in politics ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign. Following Hill's testimony in the Thomas confirmation hearings, she said, the country “turned on its heel, it became the Year of the Woman … And I must say, I’m seeing a redux of that.”

A Biden spokesman declined to comment Thursday, but pointed to the former Delaware senator’s extensive remarks on the issue in December in Teen Vogue . He told the magazine that month, "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill … I owe her an apology."

That interview is among the clear signs that Biden understands he has not fully put the issue behind him — a necessity given the critical role women and black voters play in a Democratic primary. On Friday, Biden said Kavanagh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, "should not have to go through what Anita Hill went through” if she chooses to testify.

“My biggest regret was I didn't know how I could shut you off if you were a senator and you were attacking Anita Hills’ character,” Biden told NBC’s ‘Today’ show. "Under the Senate rules I can’t gavel you down and say you can’t ask that question although I tried."

The revisiting of Biden’s performance in 1991 has offered other potential Democratic candidates a wide opening as they jockey for position ahead of the 2020 campaign.

A lawyer for Ford has said her client is “prepared” to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, giving two high-profile Democrats, Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, an opportunity to distinguish themselves from Biden’s performance years ago.

“Everyone’s always wondered whether we were going to see a tail-off of this #MeToo stuff. And it’s not. It’s sticking,” said Amanda Renteria, a former top campaign aide to Hillary Clinton. “I do think anyone, no matter where you are, no matter where you’re running, needs to really think about whatever role they’ve played in the past, and how that will be viewed in a new world.”

If Biden runs for president, Renteria said, “This bucket of issues is obviously going to come up.”

Like many Democrats, however, Renteria suggested the Anita Hill hearings are far from insurmountable for Biden.

“He’s just so real and authentic — I think he’ll figure out that piece, if that’s what he wants to run,” Renteria said.

Biden’s broader record also shows a progression that will enable him to argue that his understanding as an elected official grew over the years, including authoring the Violence Against Women Act and spearheading the “It’s on Us” campaign, which raised awareness about sexual assault on collect campuses.

“I think starting with the crime bill and passage of the Violence Against Women Act, that was his first act of atonement, if you will, for what he did to Anita Hill,” said Christine Pelosi, a Democratic National Committee member from California and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's daughter.

Saying that Biden had exhibited a “series of awakenings,” Pelosi said, “You can draw a line from a disgraceful hearing to seeds of hope in the Violence Against Women Act to ‘It’s on Us’ as vice president.”

Adelaide “Tootsie” Dennis Kline, an attorney and founding member of the South Carolina-based I Believe Anita Hill group, said she, too, believed Biden could overcome the 1991 hearing — but only because she doubted the salience of sexual harassment as a voting issue.

“It’s accepted by a lot of voters without any problems, apparently,” she said.

Of Biden, Kline said, “I don’t know if Sen. Biden has become more mature about these issues since then. … I don’t think a lot of people have gotten it. It’s been a lot of time — 27 years — and I don’t see the landscape changing very much.”

