by Tyler O’Neil
Vice President Kamala Harris has a short list for running mates, and it seems Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is her most likely choice.
Both Harris and former President Donald Trump will campaign heavily in the Keystone State, as it is considered pivotal for both of their paths to victory in the Electoral College in November.
While the legacy media will likely hail Shapiro as a moderate, that’s far from the whole story.
Here are 6 things to know about Shapiro:
1. His Resume
Shapiro, a Pennsylvania native, graduated from the University of Rochester in New York and earned his law degree from Georgetown University. He worked as a senior adviser to then-Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., and won election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2004. He joined the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2011, and he successfully ran for Pennsylvania attorney general in 2016.
He won reelection in 2020 before winning the gubernatorial race in 2022, defeating Republican Doug Mastriano by a 14.8 percent margin of victory.
He and his wife, Lori, have four children. The family attends Shapiro’s childhood synagogue, Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. The synagogue is part of the Conservative movement in Judaism, which employs a historical-critical approach to the Torah and is far less traditional than other strains of Judaism.
2. Broken Promises on School Choice
While campaigning for governor in 2022, Shapiro pledged to support school choice, supporting the Lifeline scholarship, which would directly fund students, empowering parents to choose the best schools for their kids.
Yet when the House of Representatives passed a bill including Lifeline scholarships, Shapiro threatened to veto the very proposal he had campaigned on.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Joseph D’Orsie, a Republican, put it this way in an op-ed for National Review: “Not only did [Shapiro] renege on a campaign pledge, he broke ranks with the two-thirds of Pennsylvanians who support school choice.”
3. Using Up a Surplus
D’Orsie also faulted Shapiro for spending the budget surplus he inherited when he took office last year.
Shapiro “has presided over two annual budget negotiations, and both failed to pass before the constitutional deadline of June 30,” the representative noted in National Review. “The budget surplus of over $8 billion that the governor assumed when he took office will be totally depleted by next summer, according to Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office. This will very likely spell tax hikes in the near future, a very unwelcome gift for the 60 percent of Pennsylvanians who live paycheck to paycheck.”
4. Enforcing Gender Ideology
Under Shapiro’s leadership, state licensing boards adopted strict policy statements that gave them authority to take disciplinary action against licensed therapists who provide “conversion therapy” to “transgender” children. Under these rules, if a boy comes to a therapist saying he struggles with identifying as a girl, the therapist must “affirm” him in the gender opposite his sex and set him on the path to experimental transgender interventions. Failure to do so counts as “conversion therapy” and may result in discipline.
As governor, Shapiro worked with staff at the LGBTQ pressure group the Trevor Project to further such policies, according to documents obtained by The Daily Caller. The emails show staff at Shapiro’s office and at the Trevor Project lamenting that legislation to ban “conversion therapy” would not pass the state legislature.
The documents also revealed that Trevor Project staff sent Shapiro’s office a report of alleged conversion therapy “practitioners” in Pennsylvania. The Trevor Project discovered them by perusing databases maintained by Christian organizations, such as the Restored Hope Network and Focus on the Family.
In an email The Daily Caller obtained, Ashleigh Strange, executive director for Shapiro’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, wrote, “We are working with the Trevor Project to amplify ways the public can report conversion ‘therapists.’”
“Disturbingly, The Trevor Project is seeking to ban counseling choice and punish counselors,” Anne Edward, executive director of the Restored Hope Network, told The Daily Caller.
Shapiro also opposed a bill to protect kids from experimental transgender medical interventions, filed a court brief supporting allowing males or females in opposite-sex restrooms, and invited a drag queen to perform at the governor’s mansion. Between 2015 and 2023, Pennsylvania spent than $19.8 million on so-called puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries for minors.
5. A Mixed Record on Israel
Left-wing activists have protested the possibility that Harris would pick Shapiro, launching a campaign called “No Genocide Josh” in an attempt to tie the Pennsylvania governor to Israel.
Shapiro, a practicing Jew, has condemned the antisemitism of some anti-Israel protesters. In April, he compared those protesters to the Ku Klux Klan.
“Students shouldn’t be blocked from going to campus simply because they’re Jewish,” Shapiro told CNN in April. “We have to query whether or not we would tolerate this if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia making comments about people who are African-American in our communities.”
Shapiro also condemned Liz Magill, then president of the University of Pennsylvania, after she failed to condemn antisemitism in a congressional hearing. He supports a bill to punish colleges that boycott or divest from Israel.
Yet the Pennsylvania governor also backs a two-state solution with both Israel and Palestine and has branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “terrible leader” who “has driven Israel to an extreme.” He has defended Israel’s right to defend itself after the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 and called on Hamas to immediately return the hostages it had taken, but he has also brought up the civilian deaths in Gaza, saying leaders “can’t ignore the death and destruction.”
6. Sexual Harassment Scandal
Shapiro has faced criticism for reportedly failing to address sexual-harassment allegations against a senior staffer. Last year, his office paid $295,000 in Pennsylvanians’ tax dollars to settle the complaint of a former employee who claimed Shapiro’s then-legislative affairs secretary, Mike Vereb, sexually harassed her.
The National Women’s Defense League faulted Shapiro for the alleged harassment. “The American people deserve to know that, if called to a higher office, Gov. Shapiro will do more to ensure the safety and dignity of employees, volunteers, and constituents in his office,” Emma Davidson Tribbs, its director, said in a statement Wednesday.
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Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
Photo “Josh Shapiro” by Gov Tom Wolfe.
