Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, after narrowly losing reelection to a fourth term, is now making plans for the future that, for the first time since 1997, do not involve serving in a public office representing Pennsylvania. In what ended up as the closest Senate race in the U.S. this year, Republican Dave McCormick successfully challenged Casey for the Senate seat and will be sworn into office in January. Casey, a Scranton native of Irish Catholic roots, attended College of the Holy Cross and the Catholic University of America Law school, and practiced law for a decade in Scranton before mounting his first run for public office. He was elected Pennsylvania auditor general in 1997 and treasurer in 2005, and has represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate since 2007. His father, Bob Casey Sr., was Pennsylvania’s governor 1987-95. In an interview with The Morning Call, Casey said he wants his time as a senator to be remembered primarily for the legislation he wrote to protect workers’ rights. In both his interview and his farewell remarks on the Senate floor, Casey mentioned the ABLE Act, a 2014 law he authored that allows people with disabilities to open savings bank accounts without sacrificing their federal benefits. Other legislative highlights of Casey’s include the Campus SAVE Act, which requires colleges receiving federal funding to report crime statistics including sexual assault and domestic violence, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which gives pregnant workers the right to receive “reasonable accommodations” in the workplace. “I worked very hard to stand up and fight for children for seniors, for people with disabilities, for our veterans, to try and be a champion of folks who need somebody to go to bat for them, an advocate,” Casey said. But Casey also had unfinished business that likely may not get through any time soon under Republican leadership. In his farewell speech, Casey made a final pitch to the nation’s leaders to restore a boost to the child tax credit. The provision of the American Rescue Plan expanded the existing tax credit to $2,000 and $3,600 per child, but those payments expired in 2021 and have since not been renewed. The expanded child tax credits helped cut child poverty in half that year, but much of that progress has been reversed since the expansion lapsed. “We’ve made progress when it comes to investing in our children, we still have a long way to go ,” Casey said in his Morning Call interview. “We have not made their lives enough of a priority to change the dynamic for a child, especially children who are born into circumstances who have a lot of disadvantages. Auditor General Bob Casey speaks May 9, 2022, about his plans to expand prescription drug coverage to more older Pennsylvanians, at the Easton Southside Senior Center. (Ed Crisostomo/The Morning Call) Sen. Barack Obama, right, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), with their orders at the Glider Diner in Scranton, Monday, April 21, 2008. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times) Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Casey Jr. makes a campaign stop for a rally May 20, 2002, at Lehigh Valley International Airport. (Cesar L. Laure/The Morning Call) Joined by Allentown firefighters and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, President Joe Biden addresses the media Friday, Jan. 12, 2024, at Mack South Fire Station in Allentown. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call) U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., applauds during a news conference announcing Allentown has been awarded $20 million in federal grants to help fight unemployment Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, at Eastern Eastern Exterior Wall Systems in Allentown. (Jane Therese / Special to The Morning Call) U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., talks Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, at the YMCA in Pen Argyl about the 10 prescription drugs that will have lower costs under Medicare negotiations authorized in the Inflation Reduction Act. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call) U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Scranton, Pennsylvania delivers his final remarks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (IMAGE SCREEN COPY FROM U.S. SENATE SIMULCAST ONLINE Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks during an election eve rally at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS) FILE – Pennsylvania Senate candidate Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., takes part in a debate at the WPVI-TV studio, Oct. 15, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) FILE – Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., left, stops to speak to members of the media before voting, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Scranton, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, holding his grandson Aiden, 2, walks out of his polling place at Scranton High School with his wife Terese on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) Jennifer Dessoye, the occupational therapy department chair at King’s College, gives Sen. Bob Casey a tour of the Frank and Carolyn Kowalksi Center for Advanced Healthcare Education at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (JASON ARDAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER) Sen. John Fetterman, returning after a six-week hospitalization, makes his way to the Senate floor April 17, 2023, accompanied by Pennsylvania’s senior Sen. Bob Casey (right) where they were expected to join a roll call vote. Show Caption1 of 13Auditor General Bob Casey speaks May 9, 2022, about his plans to expand prescription drug coverage to more older Pennsylvanians, at the Easton Southside Senior Center. (Ed Crisostomo/The Morning Call) Expand Casey, in his time on the Senate, is also known for softening on the issue of abortion; he formerly identified as anti-abortion and voted against providing federal grants to organizations that provide abortions. But by 2022, Casey had fully reversed his former position and spoke in support of national legislation to protect abortion rights, and in 2024, he campaigned as a pro-abortion rights candidate. He has not ruled out another run for office, he told The Morning Call. His race was the closest Senate race in the U.S. — hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick won by a margin of just a quarter of a point, and Casey did not officially concede the race until weeks after Election Day, as both candidates pursued legal measures to ensure favorable votes for them were counted. Asked to reflect on Democrats’ poor performance in the 2024 election, Casey said, “It’s going to be a while before we have a full understanding of why the election turned out the way it did.” One possible culprit he identified, however, is Democrats’ failure to communicate their perceived legislative wins to the public. Democrats are responsible for spending bills that helped the U.S. economy recover in the face of the pandemic including the American Rescue Plan Act, which provided billions of dollars to businesses, local governments and everyday Americans, Casey said. “When you’re governing and you have responsibilities to govern, you tend to solve one problem, then you move on to the next and people may not have a sense of what just happened,” Casey said. “I think I made reference to ARPA, that was really transformative legislation, but I don’t think a lot of people had a sense of how those dollars arrived in those communities, and how many battles had to be fought to get those dollars, so I think that’s on us to do a better job of communicating.” Casey was a frequent visitor to the Lehigh Valley even before the 2024 campaign season. He visited the region for a public event no fewer than 11 times throughout 2024, including campaign visits and visits in his capacity as a senator. His outlook for the future of the region is bright: Casey said the Lehigh Valley is “one of the leading regions of the country in terms of not just growth but prospects for future growth.” “It has a very high skilled workforce, it has strong educational institutions K-12 and higher education, it has good labor management cooperation and efforts that are undertaken at the local level to develop the best workforce possible, high skill levels, strong economic development organizations that have been on the forefront of creating the jobs of the future,” he said. Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk said Casey’s visits to the region helped direct federal resources to the Lehigh Valley. He met Casey in 2020, and said the senator often visited Allentown, even outside the election season, more than many other statewide elected officials did. He credited Casey with advocating for Allentown to receive a $20 million grant to address unemployment in some of the city’s poorer neighborhoods. “He showed up, and that counts for a lot,” Tuerk said. “He had a strong relationship with the city of Allentown and the Lehigh Valley.” Aside from possibly planning another run for office — which Casey said will not happen for “at least a good while,” if at all — he will continue to follow politics and find work advocating for Americans. “I’m going to be in a different chapter in my life so I have to begin to do different kinds of work,” Casey said. “But I also hope I can do work that will continue some of the advocacy work I hope to do when it comes to those Pennsylvanians and Americans I fought very hard on behalf of; children, seniors, people with disabilities, people that need advocates in and out of government. I look forward to doing that. I don’t know the nature of that or contours of that yet because I’ve just begun to think about it.” Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at [email protected].