Casey, Jr. Runs Against His Father’s Legacy

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator.)

Two years ago, I wrote a piece on Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey Jr. titled “Meet America’s Worst Catholic Senator.” That title was too narrow. The description should be broadened. Casey is arguably America’s worst senator, period, regardless of religious affiliation. The key reason for that is his singularly astonishing betrayal of his honorable father’s legacy, the legacy that has gotten Casey Jr. elected. That betrayal is quite outrageous, and it gets worse every year, right up until now, October 2024, as he once again runs for reelection.

What prompted my article two years ago was Casey’s shocking statement rejecting the June 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned both Roe v. Wade (1973) and — most remarkably — Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The latter decision was named for Casey’s father. Bob Casey Sr., the former governor of Pennsylvania, had been the last great pro-life Democrat. He fought for the “little guy” in the womb. He battled Planned Parenthood. His case against Planned Parenthood went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he lost. When the high court upheld Planned Parenthood in that ruling, it further enshrined Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.

That absurd ruling, “notorious” for Justice Anthony Kennedy’s “Mystery Clause” majority opinion, has been dubbed the “most reprehensible” and downright “worst constitutional decision of all time.” It was a terrible injustice. Gov. Casey was aghast.

The senior Casey was also aghast at the direction of his party on the abortion issue. That same summer, just two weeks after the Supreme Court decision was announced, Democrats held their national convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Casey wanted to make a pro-life speech at the convention but was blocked by Bill and Hillary Clinton and the party’s abortion radicals. It was a blatant, high-profile snub because of his pro-life views.

Casey Sr. suffered from those losses — and much more.

Casey Sr.’s Suffering and Premature Death

In this same period, Bob Casey Sr. was diagnosed with a rare disease called hereditary amyloidosis, which coincidentally and very strangely had just taken the lives of two western Pennsylvania mayors, Pittsburgh’s Richard Caliguiri and Erie’s Louis Tullio in 1988 and 1990, respectively. It was hence dubbed “the mayors’ disease,” though now it also afflicted Pennsylvania’s governor, who was in his early 60s and otherwise fit and healthy (in his youth, he was an excellent athlete). At the time of Casey’s diagnosis, I was working for the organ-transplant team at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Casey eventually in June 1993 (after I had left) came through our doors. He received a risky and difficult heart-liver transplant. He did quite well, all things considered. He recovered strongly enough to consider challenging Bill Clinton for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1996 — precisely because of Clinton’s abortion radicalism. He published a memoir fittingly titled, Fighting for Life.

Unfortunately, Casey lost that fight. He died in May 2000, at age 68.

It would be Casey’s son, Bob Casey Jr., who sought to pick up his father’s legacy. He ran for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat in 2006. He took on the best pro-life member of the U.S. Senate, Republican Rick Santorum. With the strength of his father’s name, Casey appealed not only to his own party but to moderates, independents, and pro-lifers. The Scranton, Pennsylvania, native (like his father and like Joe Biden) had attended the College of the Holy Cross and gotten his law degree from the Catholic University of America. He was a good Irish Catholic boy, committed to protecting unborn human life, just like his dad.

In short, pro-lifers could vote for this guy. And they certainly did.

In the November 2006 election, Casey Jr. crushed Rick Santorum in a landslide. He won by 17.4 percentage points. It was the biggest margin of defeat ever for an incumbent U.S. senator.

For Republican pro-lifers who backed Santorum, it was a tough loss. Losing Santorum, a Senate stalwart on life issues, was bad. However, they could at least take comfort in the fact that the junior Casey, like his dad, was pro-life. At long last, here was a pro-life Democrat, like his father, who would resist what his pope, John Paul II, had dubbed “the culture of death.”

But tragically, once in the Senate, Casey Jr. quickly became like all the other Democrats who had turned their party of the working class into the party of death. His pro-life positions started falling one after another. He steadily moved to the “pro-choice” platform of his party. By June 2022, the Catholic pro-lifer had become so anti-life that many of us sarcastically asked if Casey Jr. would even support his father’s position if Planned Parenthood v. Casey were ever overturned.

But surely, he couldn’t have gotten that bad. Right?

Well, we got our answer immediately after Justice Samuel Alito rendered his majority opinion in Dobbs.

 Casey Jr. Rejects Casey Sr.

“Roe and Casey must be overruled,” stated Justice Alito in his majority opinion in the June 2022 Dobbs decision. “Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided, Casey perpetuated its errors…. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions.”

It was a hallelujah moment for the pro-life cause. It was a triumph.

One might picture the late Gov. Bob Casey smiling down from heaven at that moment, vindicated at long last. How did his son celebrate? He didn’t.

It took little time for the junior Casey to denounce the decision. The Pennsylvania senator issued this shocking official statement, posted at his Senate website:

Today’s decision upends almost a half century of legal precedent and rips away a constitutional right that generations of women have known their entire lives. This dangerous ruling won’t end abortions in this country, but it will put women’s lives at risk. And make no mistake—this is not the end goal, it’s just the beginning. Republicans in Congress want to pass federal legislation to completely ban abortion. Our daughters and granddaughters should not grow up with fewer rights than their mothers.

It was an incredible statement to behold. Yes, Bob Casey was rejecting Bob Casey. The junior Casey jumped forth to directly repudiate his father’s famous court case. It was jaw-dropping.

Casey’s pals at the National Abortion Rights Action League were thrilled to have on their side the son of the namesake of the epic 1992 pro-life case. The abortion extremists at NARAL joined Casey Jr. in his outrage at Alito and the court majority for affirming his father’s pro-life convictions. “The Supreme Court made it clear: They are overturning Roe and Casey,” said NARAL. “This is the end of our constitutionally-protected right to abortion…. This decision is the worst-case scenario.” NARAL blasted the “extremist” and “devastating decision.”

That was June 2022. Since then, Bob Casey Jr. has managed to get only worse.

For the 2021–22 session of Congress, Planned Parenthood Action had given Bob Casey a 75 pro-choice rating. For the most recent session, he has received a perfect 100. The junior Casey now posts a flawless pro-abortion record. Conversely, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America gives Casey an “F” pro-life ranking. His father earned straight As.

The junior Casey now goes against both his father and his Roman Catholic Church on every single abortion vote. He’s a 100 percent reliable pro-choice vote. (He has also gone far-left radical on the full spectrum of transgender/LGBTQ madness.) His father is rolling over in his grave.

To show just how crazy the Casey madness has gotten, he now, in 2024, is running ads against his Republican political opponent, David McCormick, for holding the pro-life views that his own father once championed. It’s like Bob Casey Jr. is running against his father. Our Jeff Lord wrote this in his recent piece, “Casey Attacks GOP’s McCormick for Holding Father Gov. Casey’s Pro-Life Views:”

In fact, he is making a point of spending serious money to flood the Pennsylvania airwaves with a commercial attacking McCormick for holding the same pro-life views as his own father. Which all by itself shows just how far left the Pennsylvania Democrat Party has strayed since the life-supporting Gov. Casey spoke up fearlessly for the unborn. As the saying goes, ya can’t make it up.

No, you can’t. Bob Casey Jr.’s reversal on abortion is an outrageous repudiation of his father’s good name.

The senior Casey was a principled man who had bucked his party; the junior Casey drifts with the party tide. The senior Casey fought to change his party on life; the junior Casey has let the party change him. Casey Jr. has done this across the board, on issue after issue, to the point where this onetime legitimate moderate is now a cultural radical and hard leftist across the board. Heritage Action’s scorecard ranks him among the most radical members of the U.S. Senate, well below the average among Senate Democrat colleagues. Only one senator, Virginia’s Mark Warner, has a lower score. Casey actually ranks far to the left of Bernie Sanders.

Here in Pennsylvania, Casey Jr. is seen as so lacking in convictions that he’s often referred to as a “stuffed suit.” Last week, a former Casey Jr. election opponent described him to me as “a stone.” A better metaphor would be a blank slate, one on which his party’s most far-left leaders can write out their policy preferences. Casey has robotically followed his party’s far-left radicals on every issue, even the signature life issue of his father.

All of which brings us to October 2024.

 Casey vs. McCormick

Bob Casey Jr. is up for reelection this November. He has won three consecutive U.S. Senate elections thanks to his father’s name and reputation. But the good news is that Pennsylvanians have slowly but surely learned that he’s nothing like his father.

Casey Jr.’s opponent is David McCormick. The 59-year-old McCormick has had his own battles with death. The Pittsburgh native and West Point grad became an Army Ranger, joining the 82nd Airborne and serving in the first Gulf War in 1991 before going on to earn a PhD from Princeton University. McCormick was just off-stage from Donald Trump at the Butler rally on July 13, 2024. Bullets fired from would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks went just over McCormick’s head. I talked to a rally attendee who ducked right next to McCormick when the shots were fired that day. He told McCormick, “God must be watching over you.” A shaken McCormick had tears in his eyes.

Pennsylvania Republicans that day almost lost their U.S. Senate candidate as well as presidential nominee.

Casey and McCormick are locked into a tight race, with the latest poll showing Casey in the lead by only 2 percent. If Casey defeats McCormick in November, it will be by a few points at best, and nothing like his overwhelming margin against Rick Santorum in 2006. My prediction is that if Donald Trump pulls out a victory in Pennsylvania against Kamala Harris, his coattails could be just enough to pull along McCormick.

The key for David McCormick is to show Pennsylvania moderates that Casey is no longer one of them and certainly nothing like his father. Casey, meanwhile, will continue to try to benefit from his father’s name.

In truth, the betrayal of his father’s legacy has been so stark, so egregious, and so outrageous that Bob Casey Jr. is quite arguably America’s worst senator. Sure, other senators might be worse (maybe) on a given policy or issue, but when it comes to the sheer gravity of betraying his father’s legacy and what he was supposed to be for Pennsylvanians, it is difficult to find a worse senator than Bob Casey Jr.