Much of the conversation about Pennsylvania’s 2022 general election has focused on John Fetterman’s victory in the U.S. Senate race and a modern Democratic majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
However, the election results for two other offices deserve analysis because of the impact they will have on the future of Pennsylvanians. The modern governor and the modern leadership of the Republican Party in the state Senate will most likely determine the Commonwealth’s agenda for the next two years.
It has been more than 60 years since a Democratic governor replaced another Democratic governor in Pennsylvania, and the last time Democrats held the governor’s office for more than eight consecutive years was in the 1840s. But Josh Shapiro and Tom Wolf, while sharing political party affiliations and numerous policy positions, are different in many ways, and anyone expecting the upcoming Shapiro administration to simply be an extension of Wolf’s eight years may be in for a surprise.
The biggest difference between the two men is that while Governor Tom Wolf came into office as a businessman and scientist who had never run for office before becoming governor, Governor-elect Josh Shapiro is a political veteran who won election to the commissioner seat Montgomery County. State Representative and Attorney General of Pennsylvania.
Wolf brought an outside perspective to the governor’s office, offering fresh ideas but also struggling to obstruct the Republican-dominated General Assembly.
What will lawmakers be prioritizing when they return to session with modern leadership in the Pa. Senate?
On the other hand, Shapiro led the Commonwealth’s third-largest county, was a behind-the-scenes leader of the House Democratic caucus, and twice won statewide elections as an activist attorney general. He is a political expert who was not afraid to compromise when necessary.
However, experience in winning elections does not guarantee success in governing. Shapiro stated that his priorities once in office would be “invest in schools, promote public safety and lend a hand grow the economy.”
Details on how to achieve these goals await the modern administration taking office and presenting its budget proposal. Whether they will come to fruition will be revealed during negotiations with the General Assembly.
But the General Assembly was a very different place when Shapiro was a state representative. In 2007, when Democrats won the House majority by a narrow margin, it was Shapiro who was a key negotiator in the effort to elect liberal Republican Dennis O’Brien as speaker when Democratic leader Bill DeWeese fell compact of the votes to win the office.
Today, the concept of a liberal Republican serving in the General Assembly is laughable, and even “moderate” Republicans are few and far between. Governor Shapiro will negotiate with a GOP caucus that is increasingly dominated by far-right ideologists.
Republicans will control the state Senate with the same 28-22 majority they had when they started the 2021-2022 session. But the lineup has changed.
Shapiro and Davis vow to build an administration ‘that looks like Pennsylvania’
The five oldest Republican senators have retired or been defeated in the primary. The result is a modern leadership team with modern characteristics – two of its top leaders come from the increasingly Republican western part of the Commonwealth, and none from the former Republican stronghold of suburban Philadelphia. It is almost obvious that everyone on the leadership team falsely questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election results.
New Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland (the first woman to serve in the state Senate) said all the right things about working together to solve the problems of Pennsylvanians. But Republican senators and Shapiro will likely have different views on what these problems are, let alone how to solve them.
The question for legislative Republicans is whether they can turn away from their scare-tactic campaign rhetoric about crime and voter integrity to focus in the modern session on issues that impact the everyday lives of Pennsylvanians. It is a bad sign that the final act of the 2021-2022 General Assembly session was the absurd, partisan impeachment of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Meanwhile, the question for Shapiro will be to define exactly how he plans to achieve his three stated goals. Announcements on the campaign trail are one thing, but actually passing legislation and passing a budget is another, especially when many of the details of the goals are still undefined.
Pennsylvania will face many challenges in the coming years, especially as our population ages. A modern governor and a modern generation of leaders in the state Senate must lead the Commonwealth forward in addressing these challenges. Time will tell whether the pursuit of partisan advantage, especially by members of the General Assembly, can be put aside long enough to make significant changes.
