By John Micek

Pennsylvania’s senior United States Senator, Democrat Bob Casey, says he’ll vote against President Donald Trump’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court: Federal appellate court Judge Neil Gorsuch.

The Scranton Democrat announced his decision, long-expected, but not surprising, during a conference call with journalists on Thursday morning.

Casey had already publicly voiced reservations about Gorsuch, who’s been tapped to fill the vacancy created by the death of the late Antonin Scalia.

In his statement, Casey said he’d weighed several criteria when considering Gorusch, a judge of the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals: His character, temperament, professional and personal experience, judicial philosophy and, of course, prior judicial rulings.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., on Thursday expressed concerns with U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, but said he would continue to review is record and candidacy to the high court.

Casey said he had “serious concerns” about Gorsuch’s “rigid and restrictive judicial philosophy, manifest in a number of opinions he has written on the 10th Circuit.

“It is a judicial philosophy that employs the narrowest possible reading of federal law and exercises extreme skepticism, even hostility, toward executive branch agencies. Judge 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,” Casey said.

Casey’s decision came the day after the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee wrapped up hearings on Gorsuch’s nomination to the high court.

It also came as Senate Democrats announced that they planned to filibuster his nomination. That makes it likely that Gorsuch’s nomination will have a hard time finding the 60 votes it takes to clear a critical procedural hurdle, The Washington Post reported.

In a speech from the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gorusch was “unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check” on the Trump White House.

Casey will join in the filibuster.

Casey, who met with Gorusch last month, accused Trump of caving in to far-right interests with the nomination. Democrats are still seething over Republicans’ year-long block of U.S. Judge Merrick Garland, whom President Barack Obama picked to fill Scalia’s seat.

In his statement Thursday, Casey said he was concerned that Gorsuch would be too friendly to big corporations, citing a “a major study published in the Minnesota Law Review in 2013 found that the four conservative justices currently sitting on the court, Justices Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy, are among the six most business-friendly Supreme Court justices since 1946.

“Judge Gorsuch’s record indicates that he would only exacerbate this problem and further stack the deck against ordinary workers and families,” Casey said.

In a statement, the left-leaning advocacy group Why Courts Matter applauded Casey’s decision to vote against Gorsuch, saying he’d “come to the same conclusion that we and so many of our allies have come to: Judge Gorsuch is a right-wing jurist who cannot be a fair and impartial arbiter in so many of the types of cases that would come before him on the Supreme Court.”

Gorsuch’s record “does not demonstrate respect for our constitutional values of liberty, equality, and justice for all, nor has he shown respect for the belief that the Constitution protects all of us, not just the wealthy and the powerful,” the pressure group’s statement read.

The conservative group America Rising, meanwhile, assailed Casey’s announcement and the Democrats’ decision to filibuster the nomination.

“By opposing an up-or-down vote on Judge Gorsuch, it is clear that Senator Casey cares more about appeasing far-left activists threatening his re-election this year than he does the views of most Pennsylvanians,” the group’s executive director, Brian Rogers, said.  “Through three days of Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing, no Democrat has questioned his qualifications to serve on the Court with great distinction. Yet Sen. Casey is ignoring these sterling credentials and the wide bipartisan support for Judge Gorsuch and going so far as to deny him an up-or-down vote in order to curry favor with liberals who continue to push the Democratic Party further and further left.”

Here’s the full text of Casey’s statement:

“In order to properly discharge the constitutional duty to provide “advice and consent” on judicial nominees, I believe it is my duty as a U.S. Senator to evaluate the nominee based on several key criteria: character, temperament, professional and personal experience, judicial philosophy and, of course, prior judicial rulings. With respect to the nomination of Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, I took this process seriously. I spent hours studying his decisions as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. I consulted a variety of legal scholars and practitioners to understand the nuances and implications of his approach to the law. I met him personally to discuss his work and his nomination. And I watched closely his testimony before the Judiciary Committee this week.

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. It is a judicial philosophy that employs the narrowest possible reading of federal law and exercises extreme skepticism, even hostility, toward executive branch agencies. Judge 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. A major study published in the Minnesota Law Review in 2013 found that the four conservative justices currently sitting on the court, Justices Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy, are among the six most business-friendly Supreme Court justices since 1946. A review by the Constitutional Accountability Center shows the consequences of the court’s corporate tilt, finding that the Chamber of Commerce has had a success rate of 69 percent in cases before the Roberts Court, a significant increase over previous courts.

Judge Gorsuch’s record indicates that he would only exacerbate this problem and further stack the deck against ordinary workers and families. One illustrative case, TransAm Trucking, Inc. v. Administrative Review Board, involved a truck driver who was stranded on the side of the road at night in subzero temperatures with the brakes on his trailer frozen and the heater in his cab broken. He called dispatch for help multiple times, but after hours of waiting in the freezing cold, he was having trouble breathing and his torso and feet were numb. Worried about his safety, he unhitched his trailer and drove the truck away.

The company fired him for abandoning his load. Two different authorities within the DOL ruled the firing was illegal and the trucker was protected under federal law. Judge Gorsuch disagreed, parsing a federal statute to argue the driver was not protected in his decision to drive away, despite the risk of freezing to death if he stayed put. Fortunately, the majority of the court disagreed, describing Judge Gorsuch’s labored interpretation of the statute as “curious” and ruling in favor of the driver.

Judge Gorsuch’s opinion in this case and many others show how his judicial philosophy produces rulings disconnected from the lived experience of those they impact. It’s in that disconnect that ordinary people get hurt – they lose their livelihood, find their rights curtailed or see the courthouse doors closed in their face.

After considering his nomination seriously and without pre-judgement, and mindful of the awesome responsibility of passing judgement 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.

We cannot demand perfection from Supreme Court justices. But we can demand a constant commitment to fairness, to protecting all Americans regardless of power or wealth, to that guiding creed: equal justice under law. I have concluded that Judge Gorsuch is not the right choice to fulfill this commitment. I will not support his nomination.”