Robert Casey, Jr., a Democrat elected in 2006, is the senior senator from Pennsylvania. With the defeat of his colleague, Arlen Specter, in 2010, he is his state’s most powerful Democrat. Read More

Robert Casey, Jr., a Democrat elected in 2006, is the senior senator from Pennsylvania. With the defeat of his colleague, Arlen Specter, in 2010, he is his state’s most powerful Democrat.

Casey was born in the former coal town of Scranton, the oldest son in a large Irish-Catholic political family. He grew up in the Green Ridge neighborhood, the same area of town as the city’s other famous politician, Vice President Joe Biden, though Biden moved away two years before Casey’s birth. Casey’s father, Robert Casey, lost in three Democratic primaries before winning the first of his two terms as governor in 1986. He was a feisty, tradition-minded practitioner of New Deal-style politics, known best nationally as a steadfast opponent of abortion rights. In 1992, he was prevented from speaking at the Democratic National Convention, a decision certainly related to his stance on abortion but also brought on by his skepticism about Bill Clinton as the right candidate. Robert Casey Jr.’s brother, Pat Casey, twice ran unsuccessfully for the House with another Casey brother serving as his campaign manager.

Like his father, Robert Jr. graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. He taught in an inner-city Philadelphia school for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and got his law degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He practiced law in Scranton, and then won election as state auditor general in 1996. He was re-elected in 2000. In 2002, running as a cultural conservative with strong labor support, he lost a bitter and expensive primary for governor to former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell. Casey’s tightly scripted campaign and negative ads tarnished his image, but he showed some resilience by returning two years later to win the state treasurer’s office with 3.4 million votes, more than any other candidate in Pennsylvania history.

In 2005, national Democrats were looking for a strong challenger against Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a high-profile social conservative with a red-state following and a blue-state constituency. First in the House and then in the Senate, Santorum showed a knack for winning elections against tough odds. But the state’s political landscape had shifted considerably since his first election to the Senate in 1994. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer of New York considered Casey the only prospective heavyweight challenger to Santorum and quickly moved to clear the field to avoid a cash-draining primary. There was one problem: Casey’s opposition to abortion rights, which made him anathema to many cultural liberals in the Philadelphia area. But Schumer believed that Casey could make inroads into Santorum’s culturally conservative and “pro-life” base, and, as the Democratic alternative to Santorum, also could be acceptable to “pro-choice” voters in suburban Philadelphia. The national party’s heavy-handed involvement rankled many Democrats. Resistance to Casey’s candidacy faded in the run-up to the election as Casey maintained a steady and sizable lead over Santorum in the polls.

Santorum began the campaign in a difficult position. Though he was mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, his standing at home was tenuous. As early as April 2005, he trailed Casey by double digits in the polls. That summer, he released a book titled, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good. The year before he stood for re-election was perhaps not the best timing for a frank discourse on some of the most divisive cultural issues of the day. Despite his stature as a member of the Senate Republican leadership, his avid support for the increasingly unpopular Bush administration was unhelpful in 2006. Casey hammered him for voting “98 percent of the time” with President George W. Bush and characterized Santorum as having close ties to the oil, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries. Democrats sought mileage from the issue of Santorum’s residence—an issue Santorum had used against his opponent in his first House campaign in 1990—and questioned whether his Virginia home disqualified him from casting a vote in Penn Hills, the Pittsburgh suburb where Santorum owned a home and was registered to vote. Democrats also criticized him for using Penn Hills school district taxpayer dollars to educate his children in a Pennsylvania-based online charter school though they spent much of their time in Virginia.

Santorum did not run like an incumbent nor Casey like a challenger. Santorum, who trailed in the polls from beginning to end, campaigned aggressively across the state while Casey limited his public appearances in the early stages of the campaign. The two candidates clashed over the war in Iraq, Social Security, and immigration. Casey’s socially conservative positions—he also opposes gun control and same-sex marriage—helped cut into Santorum’s advantage outside the state’s metropolitan areas.

Together the two candidates raised $43 million. Santorum outspent Casey by more than $8 million, but it wasn’t enough. Casey won 59%-41%, to become the first Pennsylvania Democrat elected to a full Senate term since Joe Clark in 1962, and the first senator elected from Northeastern Pennsylvania. Casey won by huge margins in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County, 65%-35%, and in Philadelphia, 84%-16%, while holding his own in the Republican “T” that stretches from Pennsylvania Dutch country around Lancaster to the northern tier of sparsely populated counties along the New York border. Casey also swept the populous Philadelphia suburbs, winning 62% in Delaware and Montgomery counties, 59% in Bucks County, and 55% in Chester County.

In the Senate, Casey is a reliable supporter of his party’s agenda, though his devout Catholicism and his social conservatism occasionally cause him to break ranks. He has voted with President Barack Obama on most major issues. In 2011, he took over as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, becoming the first of the 10 senators elected in 2006 to take the helm of a full committee. Because it cannot move legislation, it functions as more of a platform for lawmakers’ views. Casey promised to hold hearings on the nation’s competitiveness, an issue Obama stressed in his January 2011 State of the Union address. He sponsored a bill in March to have the federal government regulate the controversial natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing or “hydro fracking,” which environmentalists blame for contaminating groundwater in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. He angered some anti-abortion groups in April 2011 when he voted against denying federal funds to Planned Parenthood, saying the group provides many family planning services beyond abortion.

Two of Casey’s main causes have been agriculture and expanding access to child care. On the former, after milk prices collapsed in 2009, he called for Congress to explore why processors and retailers kept prices high and joined Specter in introducing legislation to change the amount farmers are paid for milk. Meanwhile, he introduced a bill in 2009 that would create a program to award grants to states establishing or expanding high-quality, full-day pre-kindergarten programs. In 2007 and 2009, he sponsored bills to provide financial aid and counseling to pregnant women. He also was an avid booster of funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, similar to a program his father instituted in Pennsylvania in 1992.

From his seat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Casey was strongly critical of Afghanistan leader Hamid Karzai, who he blamed in 2009 for lacking urgency in rooting out corruption. He also pushed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in November 2010 to improve customs enforcement at border crossings after news reports that caravans of Pakistani trucks carrying bomb-making materials were crossing the Afghan border through the Khyber Pass. He visited Pakistan in August 2011 and urged government officials to limit exports of chemicals used to make improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have killed a number of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. He joined Republican Richard Burr of North Carolina in forming a new bipartisan caucus in 2009 on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.

Casey is skeptical about the free-trade policies of the last two decades, and in May 2007, he called for Congress to have the power to terminate future trade agreements that fail to meet benchmarks for creating U.S. jobs, improving U.S. wages, or opening markets to U.S. products. Casey voted against South Korea, Panama, and Colombia trade bills that became law in October 2011. “Our workers are losing over and over again when you have these trade agreements,” Casey told the Allentown Morning Call . Casey did get his Trade Adjustment Assistance amendment, which provides job training money for workers impacted by outsourcing, signed into law in the fall of 2011.

On other issues of strong local interest, Casey opposed the building of high-voltage transmission lines from the Appalachian chain to the East Coast as “federal government arrogance” and in October 2007, threatened to block the reconfirmation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman. The Department of Energy had classified 52 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties as a “national interest electric transmission corridor.” In January 2011, he introduced a bill mandating that unspent “orphan earmarks” that are more than three years old be turned over to states to use on highway projects in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Casey joined Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. and Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa. in nominating Penn State football coach Joe Paterno for a Presidential Medal of Freedom in September 2011. But after child sex abuse allegations against a former defensive coordinator rocked the school two months later, Paterno was fired and the Pennsylvania lawmakers withdrew the Medal of Freedom nomination. Casey has tried to address the issue through legislation: In November, Casey introduced a bill requiring states to enforce laws compelling adults to report instances of child abuse to law enforcement or child services agencies.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Casey endorsed fellow Democratic Sen. Obama of Illinois and campaigned hard for Obama in the old coal country around his native Scranton and in the southwest part of the state. But Obama lost the Pennsylvania primary to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 55%-45%. Casey spoke about the economy at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and continued to campaign for Obama in the fall.

Republicans would dearly love to unseat Casey in 2012, but several House Republicans in early 2011 declined a challenge. Pennsylvania is likely to be one of the most important battleground states for Obama, and given his past allegiance to the president, Casey is likely to have all the help he needs. In the fall of 2011, Republicans had a hard time recruiting a top-tier candidate to take on the well-funded incumbent. At least nine candidates have declared to run for the Republican nomination in 2012, though they all have low name recognition. The list includes businessman Steve Welch, Scranton tea party activist Laureen Cummings, and lawyer Marc Scaringi. There was some speculation that state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, who would have been the GOP frontrunner, might jump into the race. But in December 2011 Pileggi declared he would not seek the nomination.

The GOP is attempting to tie Casey to Obama, whose approval ratings have been sagging in the Keystone State. There have been some signs that Casey will try to keep his distance from Obama. In late November 2011, Obama gave a speech in Casey’s home base of Scranton, but Casey did not attend. Casey’s office downplayed his absence and stated that the senator needed to be in Washington for floor votes.