President Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, to 20 people on Thursday afternoon, including former Representative Liz Cheney and two close personal advisers, Ted Kaufman and Christopher J. Dodd.
The recipients the president selected to be honored in his last medal ceremony have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday.
It is not unusual for a president’s personal esteem to
influence the recipients of presidential medals, which are approved through a less formalized process than other awards like Medals of Honor or acts of clemency like pardons and commutations. Several of Mr. Biden’s selections are fellow lawmakers he has known and worked with for decades, and a few are from his home state, Delaware.
But the bestowing of presidential medals is also an opportunity for a president to showcase those who have fought for causes he championed. The selection of Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican whose vocal opposition to Donald J. Trump cost her her political career, was a continuation of his push for bipartisanship and decency in politics at a time when Ms. Cheney’s own party has
turned against her. Mr. Biden is said to have been considering a
pre-emptive pardon to protect her from retribution by the next administration.
In a statement, the White House praised Ms. Cheney for working across the aisle.
“Throughout two decades in public service, including as a congresswoman for Wyoming and vice chair of the committee on the Jan. 6 attack, Liz Cheney has raised her voice — and reached across the aisle — to defend our nation and the ideals we stand for: Freedom. Dignity. And decency,” the White House said. “Her integrity and intrepidness remind us all what is possible if we work together.”
Mr. Biden’s choices also reflect the causes he has fought for while in office. Several are prominent advocates who over long careers worked to advance gay rights, women’s rights, desegregation and cancer research.
Mr. Dodd, 80, and
Mr. Kaufman, 85, who have known the president for decades and earned the enduring trust of the Biden family, will also be awarded presidential medals. Mr. Dodd, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut and a top movie industry lobbyist,
helped Mr. Biden choose a running mate during the 2020 campaign. When they were both senators, Mr. Biden
once called Mr. Dodd his “single best friend” in Congress.
Mr. Kaufman stood with the Biden family at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, Del., on the night in 1972 when Mr. Biden was first elected to the Senate. He went on to serve as Mr. Biden’s chief of staff in the Senate and was selected in 2008 by Delaware’s governor to fill the seat when Mr. Biden left it vacant to become vice president.
These are the rest of the recipients:
Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee. The White House praised his “steadfast commitment to truth.”
Joseph L. Galloway, who died in 2021, will be honored posthumously. Mr. Galloway was a war correspondent who reported on the conflicts in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. He was the only civilian awarded a Bronze Star for combat valor during Vietnam War.
Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat and former representative who served New York for 18 years. Ms. McCarthy advocated for stricter gun safety laws after her husband was killed and her son gravely injured in a mass shooting.
Thomas J. Vallely, a U.S. Marine and Vietnam War veteran who founded a Fulbright program in Ho Chi Minh City. “Over the course of five decades, he has brought Vietnam and the United States together,” the White House said.
Mary L. Bonauto, a prominent gay rights advocate who argued before the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case in which the justices ruled to establish a right to same-sex marriage.
Evan Wolfson, an early leader in the marriage equality movement.
Louis Lorenzo Redding, who died in 1998, will be honored posthumously. Mr. Redding, a civil rights advocate and Delaware’s first Black lawyer, argued a case that led to the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling to desegregate schools in Brown v. Board of Education.
Eleanor Smeal, an advocate for women’s rights. The White House credited her with helping to pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, a
legislative achievement from Mr. Biden’s days in the Senate that he has called “one of the most important laws passed by Congress in the last 30 years.”
Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who died in 2006, will be honored posthumously. Ms. Tsutsumi was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that successfully overturned the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. She was a 22-year-old typist for the California Department of Motor Vehicles who had never set foot in Japan when she was interned along with her family.
Bill Bradley, the Hall of Fame basketball player and two-time N.B.A. champion with the New York Knicks who went on to represent New Jersey in the Senate as a Democrat for 18 years. He also ran a campaign for president in 2000, but lost to Al Gore. In 2020, he endorsed Mr. Biden and campaigned for him.
Nancy Landon Kassebaum, a Republican and former senator from Kansas. The White House noted that she “reached across the aisle to do what she believed was right” on reproductive rights and health care reform.
Collins J. Seitz, a senior federal appeals court judge in Wilmington who died in 1998, will be honored posthumously. Earlier in Mr. Seitz’s career, his reasoning helped dismantle the “separate but equal” doctrine that propped up segregated school systems across the country. The Supreme Court agreed with his ruling and in its unanimous 1954 decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren repeatedly cited Judge Seitz’s opinions.
Frank K. Butler Jr., a former Navy SEAL and eye surgeon whose work advancing battlefield medical guidelines for injured troops is credited with saving thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse who served during the Vietnam War and founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation.
Bobby Sager, an American philanthropist and photographer.
Frances M. Visco, the longtime president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, which pushes for funding toward breast cancer research.
Paula S. Wallace, the president and co-founder of the Savannah College of Art and Design.
“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”
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