Washington, D.C. – Ahead of President Trump’s announcement concerning his nominee to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) released the following statement:

“In a nation with over 700 sitting federal judges, many of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, it is outrageous that President Trump will nominate from a list of just 25 dictated to him by the Heritage Foundation. This list is the bidding of corporate special interests hell-bent on handing health care over to insurance companies, crushing unions that represent working men and women, and promoting policies that will leave the middle-class further behind. Any judge on this list is fruit of a corrupt process straight from the D.C. swamp.

Heritage, which is an extreme Right organization, just released a new proposal to end protections for people with pre-existing conditions and gut Medicaid for seniors, people with disabilities, and children. They recently hosted a press conference for Republican attorneys general who are trying to eliminate those protections through the courts. In Pennsylvania, there are more than 5.3 million people (including 643,000 children) who have pre-existing conditions.

Heritage has also called labor unions – who helped build the middle class – “cartels.” From the formation of the first permanent Pennsylvanian local labor union in Philadelphia in 1792, through the Lattimer massacre in Northeastern Pennsylvania, to the Homestead Strike in Western Pennsylvania to today’s struggle to protect the right to organize, Pennsylvania workers have led the way to ensure that working people have basic rights, good wages, and benefits, like health care. The last thing working men and women in Pennsylvania need is another corporate justice on an increasingly corporate court.

I was elected to represent all Pennsylvanians. I was not elected to genuflect to the hard Right, who are funded by corporate America.

President Lincoln called on our nation to work to ensure “… that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Instead, Congressional Republicans in Washington and the Administration are determined to pack the Supreme Court with a government of, by, and for extreme Right corporate interests.

I will oppose the nomination the President will make tonight because it represents a corrupt bargain with the far Right, big corporations, and Washington special interests.”

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