WILKES-BARRE — U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Thursday said he will vote “no” on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court of the United States.
Casey said he has used the weeks since the nomination was announced to thoroughly review Gorsuch’s record, meet with Gorsuch and judicial experts and most recently reviewed his hours of testimony from his hearing.
Casey said in order to properly discharge the constitutional duty to provide “advice and consent” on judicial nominees, he needed to evaluate the nominee based on several key criteria: character, temperament, professional and personal experience, judicial philosophy and prior judicial rulings.
Casey said in a news release that he spent hours studying Gorsuch’s decisions as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, he consulted a variety of legal scholars and practitioners to understand the nuances and implications of his approach to the law, and he met Gorsuch personally to discuss his work and his nomination.
“I have serious concerns about Judge Gorsuch’s rigid and restrictive judicial philosophy, manifest in a number of opinions he has written on the 10th Circuit,” Casey said. “It is a judicial philosophy that employs the narrowest possible reading of federal law and exercises extreme skepticism, even hostility, toward executive branch agencies.”
Val DiGiorgio, chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said Casey “has again aligned himself with the far left.” He said, in choosing to oppose Gorsuch’s nomination, Casey is directly disrespecting the will of Pennsylvania voters.
“These voters gave President Trump the chance to nominate Judge Gorsuch — a mainstream conservative who the American Bar Association unanimously gave its highest rating of well-qualified,” DiGiorgio said. “More concerning, Bob Casey has not stated whether or not he will join the Senate Democrats’ filibuster attempt to deny Judge Gorsuch an up-or-down vote by the entire Senate. This obstructionist approach to governing will not be forgotten by Pennsylvania voters when they go to the polls in 2018.”
Casey said Gorsuch opinions often reflect a commitment to satisfy his judicial philosophy more than to grapple with the complex circumstances faced by ordinary Americans. Disproportionately, powerful interests are the beneficiaries while workers, consumers and those with disabilities are the losers of this approach.
“This is cause for particular concern at a time when the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Roberts, has become an ever more reliable ally to big corporations,” Casey said. “After considering his nomination seriously and without pre-judgment, and mindful of the awesome responsibility of passing judgment on nominees to the highest court in the nation, I do not believe Judge Gorsuch’s judicial approach will ensure fairness for workers and families in Pennsylvania.”
Casey said he has concluded that Gorsuch is not the right choice for the court and said he will not support his nomination.
