PENNSYLVANIA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
2006 General Election
Candidate Interviews
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D)
What qualities do you think the Commonwealth needs in its US senator?
When you are elected to public office, the qualities that people expect are integrity, compassion, and competence. Then in a race like mine, the question of independence is also very important. I believe people are looking for a Senator who truly represents this state and who doesn’t get too caught up in political circles that put special interests over Pennsylvania’s interest and the common good of all Americans. That independence is a very important quality for a Senator.
I have tried as a public official for the last 10 years to be the kind of person who does his job with compassion, integrity, and competence. But I’ve also tried to show the kind of independence that people expect of public officials, especially those who are representing a state like Pennsylvania.
How would you characterize your political philosophy as it relates to the role of religion in public life?
I am like a lot of public officials whose faith inspire and inform what they do. It’s always a difficult question to define where faith and belief take people and exactly how much impact faith has on the role of the public official. People of faith can differ on a specific policy position, but certainly the background I come from, the way I was raised, and the Church have had a profound impact on the person I am. That is the source from which I draw most of my values. And I believe a person’s values inspire, or at least should inspire, the kind of work that person does as a public official.
I made a decision after college to go into the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. That didn’t just happen because I attended a Jesuit college and was in the right place to hear about the opportunity. It happened because of my parents and because of my faith.
It is sometimes difficult to determine where lines should be drawn in this area. But to say that you can completely disengage your beliefs and your faith from public policy is really missing the boat. On the other hand, faith put into action in the public square, of course, should not be dogmatic or exclusive.
Much of Catholic social teaching is focused on promoting the common good, and I have tried to follow that principle in my political and policy decisions. In fact, I’ve dedicated a page on my campaign website to explaining why I feel this is such an important concept and how I plan to promote the common good as a Senator.
The concept of the “common good” is a good example of how we should apply faith to the public sphere. It is a concept completely rooted in religious conviction that has a broad appeal in many different sectors of society. Furthermore, it passes the test Jesus gave us that we should judge the value of ideas and people claiming to speak for God by the fruits they bear. When religion is being applied properly, I believe it unites people and calls them to something greater than themselves. As public officials and as voters, it is important that we ask ourselves what kind of fruit has come from some of the ways religion has been applied to politics in the last few years. And it is also important to look at the fruits of our public officials to see whether the fruits of their labor match up with the rhetoric of their speeches.
Which statement most closely reflects your opinion and why?
* Government officials should maintain a strict separation between personal religious beliefs and public leadership.
OR
* Government officials should seek to integrate their faith life with their public life.
I’m not sure either statement quite gets it exclusively. We must ensure that the church and state stay separate. But as a public official, my faith should inform what I do and help guide me through difficult public policy decisions. We have to be observant of the fact that America is a pluralistic society. That is extremely important. But pluralism does not preclude me or any other public official from holding positions on a specific question of public policy that agree with the teachings of my church--the Catholic Church--or the religious doctrine of any church.
This state was founded by William Penn to be a tolerant settlement and society with as much emphasis on ensuring the free exercise of religion as preventing the official establishment of a single religion. I think that what concerns many people of faith is that sometimes in the debate on separation of church and state there is a disproportionate emphasis on the establishment clause of the Constitution. People can lose sight of the fact that we have a free exercise clause as well. But I do think that as a Roman Catholic in public life, it is important that I be very clear about the importance of diversity, tolerance, and pluralism.
Would you support legislation that would protect religious institutions and individuals from being required to provide, pay for or refer for products or services contrary to their conscience and moral teachings?
Legislative avenues exist for ensuring that health care institutions with a mission based upon a particular faith or religious point of view can be protected to carry out their mission. There are a number of pieces of legislation that over many years have done just that. And there has always been recognition that Catholic hospitals will not perform abortions. That has been protected. The question is harder to answer the further away you get from an issue like abortion, which is a very clear case of protection of life.
It becomes difficult when you get to a specific medical service that a particular institution or individual is not going to provide because of a religious doctrine. That raises the question of how individuals can gain access to those kinds of services. We are seeing it now in the context of pharmacies. It’s never easy to balance this equation because we have a societal and governmental responsibility to provide care for our people within the laws of our land, but we need to make every effort to allow for individual freedoms within those constraints. I believe there are ways to allow someone who asks for a particular legal service to obtain that service without any undue hardship, but maybe not from a particular pharmacist or employee. The devil, of course, will be in the details, but I believe we can find ways to appropriately balance the legitimate concerns on both sides.
Please comment on the following issues or initiatives:
* Expanding protection and support for unborn children and their mothers in Pennsylvania.
I am a pro-life Democrat, and there are more of us out there than the press would lead you to believe, but probably not enough in high elected office. If this country ever witnessed a time period where the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade and that decision came back to the states, I would hope that Pennsylvania would enact legislation protecting the unborn.
But on this issue it’s important to be both honest and respectful to people who disagree. We are going to have to forge some consensus if we’re really going to tackle the problem. We have a lot of disagreement on abortion across the country. At the same time there is a lot of consensus that we should work together to do everything we can to help support women and families facing unexpected or crisis pregnancies. Family planning is another area where there is a great deal of consensus in the country. People that disagree on a lot of things agree that we should provide that.
We also must face the important question of what this country does for a woman who makes a choice to bear a child. Do we do everything possible to help her through that experience; before, during, and after the pregnancy? Pope John Paul II many years ago spoke of a “radical solidarity” with a woman who faces a pregnancy. Women don’t have to be poor or single mothers to get scared and feel like they are alone and that no one is going to stand with them and support them. We need to enact legislation and support initiatives that reflect our solidarity with women. I believe that there is a great deal of consensus and common ground in this area, even if the newspapers don’t write about it. The Catholic Church can and should continue to talk about it, however, and we need to continue to speak vocally about the importance of understanding that being pro-life must include more than simply being against abortion. We cannot allow people to call themselves pro-life or say they are in favor of life when they support cutting services that help pregnant women, new mothers, and their children. That is just wrong.
Amending the Pennsylvania or US Constitution to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman and prevent civil unions or other functionally equivalent legal relationships.
I don’t support gay marriage. I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, but I do support civil unions. The question of the amendment has come before the people in this campaign a lot already. There is obviously a great deal of disagreement in the country about that amendment. I believe that the majority of those who come down on the support side of the amendment, like the Catholic Conference and some other faith traditions, do so because of conviction and because of a strong belief and point of view about marriage that I share. I respect and appreciate their position.
But the amendment is being used in Washington by politicians and consultants to divide America, demonize people, and sow seeds of fear to reap political gain. All the attention on the amendment in recent years, especially those leading up to elections, has happened at a time when most states have laws that already do exactly what the amendment would do.
This country has far too many divisions. And there are not enough ways to bring people together. That’s not to say that people who have a different point of view usually arrive at that conclusion based upon anything other than their core convictions. But I do think this issue has been hijacked by consultants and politicians in Washington in a very despicable way, and I will not support it because I don’t want to be part of that.
* What is your position on the death penalty?
I have always been a supporter of the death penalty, especially for heinous crimes. I know that the Church has a different point of view. I am challenged all the time by people who say if you are pro-life on abortion, how can you support the death penalty? I don’t think there is any comparison between the two, however. In one case you are talking about a child in the womb--a life with no power and no way to protect itself. In the other you are talking about how we should deal with someone who has committed murder. I know there is a lot of disagreement about this issue, and I know it is more of a state issue than a federal issue, but I feel it is an important question for people to face directly.
* Expanding the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) by allocating more money for tax credits to businesses donating to approved scholarship at the federal level.
I have never supported it at the state level. I don’t think I would at the federal level. I don’t know of a way to make it work so that it doesn’t undermine public education. I’d definitely be open to exploring ways to do that, but in its present formulation, I would not be able to support it.
Expanding or changing programs to grant greater access to health care for low income citizens such as children’s health insurance, Medicaid and Medicare.
I’m glad you’re asking about this. I would put this question and the others about the “least of these” at the top of the list. The Church has always understood that the government has a responsibility to care for the poor and powerless and that faithful citizens cannot be single-issue voters. We should ensure that those principles are reflected in the questions we ask our political leaders.
There are many facets to this question about health insurance, and I believe our failure to address them is one of the colossal failures of the last few years in Washington. I don’t want to be too partisan, but you have had one party who has had the power for a number of years that has not addressed it. I don’t consider association health plans or health savings accounts to be in any way addressing the issue. They do not move the country forward toward covering more of the 46 million Americans who have no health insurance at all, 8 million of whom are children. To me, this is a life issue, and it is something we must address.
What I have proposed in this campaign is support for specific legislation that would provide more coverage for children’s health insurance. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for parents who have to face the fact that they can’t provide their kids with medical care they need because their children are uninsured. I believe this is an issue we are morally compelled to address. As you know, in this state we have a CHIP program that my father worked very hard to get enacted into law. And every governor since then has supported it in both parties -- two Republican governors and Democratic Governor Rendell, who right now is trying to expand it. But he, like any governor, needs help expanding the children’s health insurance program. For the last few years, the federal government has failed to adequately support children’s health insurance around the country. I support legislation that would reverse that trend.
In addition to that, the federal government has to do a lot more to support Medicaid. Unfortunately, what they have done in the last couple of years is cut it by billions at a time when we should be strengthening Medicaid. We should make every effort to do outreach to people that actually should be covered by Medicaid. I know my father talked about this more than a decade ago. In Pennsylvania today, thousands if not tens of thousands, can be covered by Medicaid but are not enrolled. Some people in the change to our new welfare system took themselves out of the Medicaid Program because they thought the deadlines for welfare reform applied to Medicaid. So a lot of outreach should take place on Medicaid and on children’s health insurance. We know that enrollment increases with advertising. When you do a lot of outreach, especially on television, the numbers of those who are eligible but not enrolled go down because people hear about the program. So any way to expand access through advertisements is very important, whether it is newspaper, radio, television, or outreach in hospitals and social service agencies.
There is also a bill in the Senate right now which speaks directly to the idea of allowing small businesses to have access to a large and open purchasing pool for health care, just like the one every member of the House and the Senate in Washington have access to. Small business should have the same opportunity as the government.
We need to understand that these policy and political debates have an impact on real people. This never gets talked about in Washington, but we need to be discussing these issues in those terms. I applaud the Catholic Conference for pushing so hard on the health care issues because they are critically important, even if they have been largely ignored in Washington.
* How would you address the concerns that are being raised right now by illegal immigration?
I believe that most Americans agree on a couple of fundamentals. First of all, we have to secure the borders and we have to pay for that. You can’t talk tough about border security and not want to vote for legislation that actually secures the borders. There is a big disagreement between the two candidates for the Senate on this issue. I support border security, and I am willing to find ways to pay for it. My opponent has talked tough on securing the borders, but he has voted against actually doing so seven times.
The second part of the question is enforcing the current law with regard to employers. We have some employers that violate the law and make it impossible for the federal government, or any institution, to be able to track where we have illegal immigrants in America. Again, there’s a disagreement between the two candidates on this issue. I believe we should have tough enforcement of the laws with regard to employers and make sure there is some system in place to track where these individuals are. I think that is critically important.
After that, when it comes to other questions like a national guest worker program, there is significant disagreement in the country. Nevertheless, enough agreement exists in specific areas that there are opportunities to move forward, especially industry by industry. For example, agriculture is an industry with a consensus in the employer community and in the labor community. Both want a guest worker initiative that works for their industry and also works for our economy.
The problem is that by listening to some people in Washington, you would think that every illegal immigrant in this country just landed in a spaceship yesterday. Everyone in Washington is expressing shock and disbelief that they are here and outrage at this new problem. Yet we know that our government, Democrats and Republicans, have turned a blind eye and permitted people to come into this country illegally. So what do we do about that? It seems the norm has been to put our head in the sand and say that we are going to talk about tough borders only at election time but not provide the funding for it. And now we have people in campaign mode talking “tough” about how we are going to deport eleven or twelve million people? That is the equivalent of deporting the population of Pennsylvania. The idea that that it is possible or humane is an insult to this country. And of course, we must never lose sight of the fact that this is a debate about people rather than numbers. Whatever we decide to do will have a real impact on real families, and we must always take that into account. So, we have to deal with this issue. If that means you deal with it by focusing on borders, employers, and maybe on a guest worker program, that would be a lot and a great first step.
The current leadership in Congress and this administration have a lot of explaining to do. There is a lot of talk in Congress, a lot of tough talk about borders, but many of those tough-talkers didn’t vote the right way on border security. And we’ve seen the results of their unwillingness to put their money where their mouths are. Since 2001, just look at the increase in undocumented workers from Mexico alone. We’ve seen an increase of 87%. So those who are talking tough in 2006 have to answer the question: what were they doing about this problem in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005?
I think the people of this state are going to have a lot to say about the two candidates for the Senate, not just regarding how they address the issue now, but how the incumbents addressed the issue in the past when they had the power to do something about it. My father had a great test for every public official, which I have tried to take to heart. It can be a very unforgiving test, but it is very simple. What did you do when you had the power? That’s an important question for this election year.
We know you have a time schedule to keep. Is there anything you would like to say, anything you would like to share about yourself with the Catholic public in general?
I wish we could have spent more time in this discussion talking about the social justice concerns that the Catholic Church has so strongly espoused. Anyone who has gone through Catholic school has been taught that we should embrace God’s preferential option for the poor. Yet we didn’t touch much on that today in this conversation. In Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, he said that the main responsibility of the state is to bring about a just society, and it is the Church’s role to help keep the state focused on that purpose.
All of the questions we discussed were very important, and obviously I agree with the Church on the vast majority of the Life and Family issues. But we need to be defining those issues on our own and more broadly rather than accepting the narrow framing of political parties. To have a just society, the “seamless garment of life” extends beyond the womb, throughout a person’s life, and even to all of creation.
I wish we could have discussed environmental stewardship because that is an issue that we must face, and the Catholic Church has a strong history on it. We cannot allow lobbyists and special interest to use the money they give to politicians as a means of trumping the moral interests of this country and keeping us from pursuing what we know is right. We need to be more intentional about asking questions that cover the entire range of our social gospel.
Having said that, I have sincerely appreciated this opportunity to speak directly to Catholic voters in Pennsylvania. Too often in campaigns today, it is very difficult to have such a conversation. Right now, unfortunately, we have a political system which puts a primacy on fund raising and advertising to the exclusion of a lot of other things I would like to be doing, like having these types of conversations and discussions. We really do need more opportunities like this one, and I am very grateful that you are doing this.
I’d like to wrap up by saying that I have been blessed as a public official--but even more important, as a citizen—by my background and upbringing. It was very important for me to grow up in a community like Scranton, Pennsylvania where the Church had, and still does have, a substantial positive impact on people’s lives. I grew up in a Church that was a real light to the community in terms of how it cared for its flock, how it protected the vulnerable, and its advocacy--not just for people of faith--but for all people. I have been truly blessed to have been a part of that, and it has had a huge impact on the person I am today.
My years in Catholic education and the very positive influence of my parents led me to go into a volunteer program after college and ultimately to run for public office myself. I am grateful for the opportunities that I have had to serve in two statewide offices, and I would be honored to have the chance to serve this state a third time in public office as its US Senator. And so I would respectfully ask for the votes of people in Pennsylvania in both parties and in every church and certainly Catholic voters.
I believe we have to move in a new direction in this country. We have to start emphasizing what brings people together rather than what holds us apart. In Washington today, there is far too much “divide and conquer” and not enough “unite and prosper.” I want to emphasize what we can do together, and the common ground for the common good of all of us. I’ll do everything I can in the US Senate--just as I have tried to do as a state public official--to live up to my oath of office, but even more to live up to the directive that is actually inscribed in the State Finance building where I work. It says, “All public service is a trust given in faith and accepted in honor.” I take that obligation very seriously as a state public official. I would take it very seriously as a United State Senator for Pennsylvania. Thank you for this opportunity.
(c) 2006