WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden is offering a rebuttal of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney before the nation's largest civil rights organization, defending President Barack Obama's record before black voters.

Biden is addressing the NAACP convention in Houston on Thursday, a day after Romney said he'd do more for African-Americans than Obama, the nation's first black president. Romney was booed when he said he'd repeal Obama's sweeping health care reform law but otherwise got a polite reception as he reached out to a traditionally Democratic voting bloc.

Obama's campaign countered that Romney's policies would hurt working families in the black community, an argument Biden was expected to make before the NAACP delegates. Democrats said Romney had opposed the rescue of the U.S. auto industry, the health care law and the economic stimulus, which they said helped black voters.