While Republicans criticize and Democrats tout Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a potential vice presidential running mate for Kamala Harris, they are focusing on several key moments from his political career.
The sexual harassment scandal involving one of his former top ideas is perhaps the most controversial episode of his year and seven months in the state’s top job. He also faced bipartisan criticism for developing, but ultimately rejecting, a plan to create federally funded school vouchers that families could exploit to pay for private and religious schools.
He has been praised and criticized both for investigating and partnering with natural gas fracking companies and for taking a sturdy stance on Palestine and Israel’s war with Hamas.
Shapiro and his supporters, meanwhile, point to his role in quickly reopening I-95, an economically vital transportation route on the East Coast, after a fire damaged a section of the freeway in Philadelphia last year.
In the coming weeks, they will also likely tout his accomplishments during his six years as state attorney general, including investigations into opioid manufacturers and widespread child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania.
Departure from Democratic Party orthodoxy
Aside from the sexual harassment case involving a former Shapiro assistant, the most controversial issue of his career may be his support — and then withdrawal of support — for private school vouchers.
Shapiro’s children attend a private Jewish school, and as a candidate he supported educational vouchers, reportedly after being under the influence of Joel Greenbergbillionaire and co-founder of Susquehanna International Group.
Greenberg and his fellow Susquehanna co-founder, conservative activist Jeff Yass, are major political donors in Pennsylvania and major funders of the school choice movement in the state.
During state budget negotiations last year, Shapiro struck a deal with Republican lawmakers to fund a $100 million voucher program for children in “low-achieving” districts in exchange for agreeing to overall state higher education spending. After the Democratic-led House refused to support a budget that included vouchers, Gov. budget item vetoed the programsaying he wanted to avoid a budget impasse.
Senate Republicans responded angrily, saying the governor “has chosen to betray the good faith agreement we reached.” Democrats said they were confused by Shapiro’s enthusiasm for the bill, which was fiercely opposed by teachers unions and other major party constituencies.
Last month, a coalition of education advocacy groups from across the country urged Harris not to pick Shapiro as her vice presidential candidate because of his stance on vouchers. Some Republicans, meanwhile, are still brooding over his withdrawal from the plan last year.
“He failed to convince House Democrats why this is important, and he failed because he left all these kids out in the cold,” Kim Ward, the Republican president pro tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate, said recently. he told the Wall Street JournalThe conservative Commonwealth Foundation has began airing television and press ads partly to veto Shapiro.
Bringing fracking miners to justice and then taking them into custody
Another area where Shapiro has offended some members of both the Democratic and Republican camps is energy policy and fracking, a sensitive issue in a state where the coal and gas industry dominates.
As attorney general, he has won praise from environmentalists for prosecuting fracking companies over the harmful effects of shale gas extraction and, most recently, for proposing cap and invest program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in industry. However, they also criticized him for cooperation with the fossil fuel industry in the state AND promoting the exploit of natural gas obtained by fracking.
Critics on the right, meanwhile, say Shapiro’s carbon plan and proposal to promote renewable energy will make the state’s energy supply less effective. more exorbitant and less reliableand say he has been too tough on energy producers and has not supported Republican proposals for permit reform.
His sturdy stance on Israel and Palestine has also sparked extreme reactions, with left-wing activists saying it is unacceptable for a vice presidential candidate.
“Shapiro stands out among the current potential vice presidential candidates as someone who is exceptionally bad about Palestine,” said David Klion wrote in The New Republic last month.
The governor, who has close ties to Israel, strongly defended the invasion of the country Gaza, drawing criticism from Muslim groups who said he ignored the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Shapiro was a prominent critic of universities that he said failed to respond quickly to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. comparing protesters to white supremacists. In December, He condemned Former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill’s testimony before Congress about the university’s response to allegations of anti-Semitism, days before Magill resigned under pressure.
Designing the image of a person who can act
Shapiro has tried to promote himself, apparently with some success, as a man who “doing sh..t” a phrase he began using occasionally after a tanker truck fire caused the I-95 freeway to collapse last June.
After initially warning that it could take months to repair the road, the transient lanes opened just 12 days later. Shapiro paid $7 million in state funds, with the federal government chipping in $3 million, and President Biden has promised that the federal government will cover much of the cost of eternal repairs. Shapiro led a triumphant rally of sports mascots, union workers, federal lawmakers and local celebrities at the reopening.
The Commonwealth Foundation says the governor has exaggerated his accomplishments. Shapiro “I didn’t do anything,” the conservative group says in its ads. It claims that fewer bills have been passed in his first year and a half in office than in any Pennsylvania governor in at least 50 years and fewer than in other states with politically divided governments.
You can also expect to hear about Shapiro’s work as attorney general, which paved the way for his victory in the gubernatorial election.
In 2018, his office issued report on child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Pennsylvaniafinding that bishops and other leaders covered up abuse of more than 1,000 victims by more than 300 priests over 70 years and convinced victims not to report the abuse and law enforcement not to investigate. The report attracted international attention and raised the profile of the recently elected Shapiro.
He was also one of 41 state attorneys general who examined pharmaceutical companiesincluding several based in Pennsylvania, for their role in the deadly opioid epidemic. The settlement in that case is It is expected to bring the state $1 billion to fund drug prevention, law enforcement, health care and other programs.
