Pennsylvania
Nothing “Fair” about Fairness West Virginia’s Hostile Takeover of Pennsylvania LGBTQ Advocacy – Philadelphia Gay News
Fairness West Virginia is soon planning to launch a statewide project that aims to take over LGBTQ advocacy in Pennsylvania, but there is nothing fair about West Virginians seizing political control of Pennsylvania’s LGBTQ communities.
When I heard an organization from West Virginia wanted to wrest statewide LGBTQ leadership away from Pennsylvanians, I immediately reached out to connect. I was among the first to meet with Fairness West Virginia’s Executive Director Andrew Schneider in 2022 on their proposed project.
As a longtime advocate in LGBTQ policy work across Pennsylvania, I wanted to learn more about Fairness West Virginia’s interest in our state. I earnestly listened and responded with multiple ideas about how they could work with LGBTQ Pennsylvanians instead of bulldozing over our commonwealth to take command. I met with numerous LGBTQ leaders to devise and suggest plans to work together. Outside LGBTQ groups have come into PA before on discrete projects, but never to dominate the entire advocacy space.
All requests for collaboration went unanswered by Fairness West Virginia. That told me they have no interest in working with LGBTQ Pennsylvanians on the ground doing this vital work.
Still, through 2023, I would get calls from LGBTQ community leaders who were approached by Fairness West Virginia asking for money — not to collaborate but to subordinate under their efforts as a board member of their project.
When I asked Fairness West Virginia’s Executive Director “why” they wanted to do this, there was never a substantial reason given. Over time, Fairness West Virginia’s entire approach has given me great pause and chilling concerns about what is to come.
The real challenge in Pennsylvania is getting more LGBTQ-affirming legislators elected — not an absence of leadership from nonprofit organizations until now. Having an out-of-state organization control a lobbyist in the halls of our state Capitol won’t really change that fundamental issue. However, it will confuse legislators and send needed resources out of state.
This may be a pet project for Fairness West Virginia, but the very lives of LGBTQ Pennsylvanians are at stake.
We’ve seen this before
The last time a similar entity came to Pennsylvania was in 2015, in which massive amounts of money were squandered and led to burned relationships in the state Senate — it took years for us to clean up their mess.
I recently learned Fairness West Virginia is attempting to validate their Pennsylvania project because there is no full-time paid lobbyist for LGBTQ issues in Harrisburg and they believe there needs to be a successor organization to Equality Pennsylvania.
But the legacy of Equality Pennsylvania is not dissimilar to those in other states across our nation.
There was a mainstream statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization with a board composed of political donors from a few major cities who aimed to promote their relevance to receive funding and clout. When the time came for difficult decisions, they reverted to organizational preservation rather than community empowerment or effectiveness. Some groups betrayed those they purported to represent by lifting up individuals who harmed LGBTQ people or ran their organizations into the ground.
Following the passage of marriage equality, many of the statewide LGBTQ organizations shut down in the Northeast. They weren’t connected to their communities and the engaged political class turned their resources elsewhere.
Recognizing that out-of-state organizations will continue to try to pilfer PA for their benefit, I helped the Pennsylvania Youth Congress create the Pennsylvania Coalition of LGBTQ Organizations in 2020. Over 50 LGBTQ organizations throughout the commonwealth have signed a joint statement of principles that invites outside organizations to work with LGBTQ Pennsylvanians and not around us.
In talking with national LGBTQ organizations since 2018, they often referenced that since there was no generalized statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, they might need to come in one day to create a “Pennsylvania coalition” — national organizations that each buy a stake in a new entity that would control LGBTQ messaging and actions in PA. We wanted it to be clear that there indeed are strong LGBTQ Pennsylvania organizations already in existence that are happy to be partners in the important work ahead.
Pennsylvanians are already doing the work Fairness West Virginia wants to do
It is patently false and egregiously insulting to imply that Pennsylvania doesn’t have LGBTQ advocates in Harrisburg — and that only with Fairness West Virginia’s expansion into Pennsylvania can there be success.
I have been a full-time registered LGBTQ lobbyist in Harrisburg and I am not alone in that job experience. There are statewide LGBTQ groups like Keystone Equality, the Pennsylvania Equality Project, the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, a governor’s commission, and other organizations already helping to keep our diverse communities across the state connected and advocating for them regularly in the Capitol. Many have long-standing, respected voices and power in legislative advocacy.
Legislation and administrative policies have moved. Scores of policy wins in local and state government in Pennsylvania show how successful we are. We have more local LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances than any state in the nation. We’ve had at least a dozen rallies and lobby days in Harrisburg in recent years.
What exactly do they claim is missing? We have a robust statewide campaign for nondiscrimination protections called Pennsylvania Values backed by Fortune 500 companies, dozens of chambers of commerce, and nearly 50 colleges and universities. Pennsylvanians have been able to advance positive legislation — like hate crimes protections — and have stopped negative policies like bans on trans youth healthcare. Registered lobbyists are hired by LGBTQ organizations when needed. We’ve done all this and more without Fairness West Virginia’s intervention.
It’s sad how many people will be deceived as Fairness West Virginia’s project is launched. I am gravely concerned about the impact a superimposed, out-of-state managed project will have on stunting real progress on LGBTQ policy in Pennsylvania.
While LGBTQ organizations across PA have ongoing advocacy efforts in Harrisburg, this new project from West Virginia will insert itself into legislative strategy meetings and actions to take credit to prove why they should exist. Since this entity is administered from West Virginia, advocates in Pennsylvania cannot influence what they direct their staff members to do. The decisions on making legislative deals or investing in types of public messaging will ultimately come from West Virginia through their Pennsylvania project’s board, at the calling of whatever entities are funding Fairness West Virginia. Despite having board members for their Pennsylvania project in our state, their website admits not a single one of them — including their project Chair — have current experience in a Pennsylvania LGBTQ organization. As they are not accountable as present leaders in LGBTQ organizations in Pennsylvania, the framework appears to be just as Equality Pennsylvania was: with individuals from political circles mostly in our cities who often make decisions not aligned with the long-term success of LGBTQ policy in our state.
I believe Pennsylvania lawmakers and donors are smarter than Fairness West Virginia believes them to be — no amount of glossy public relations can conceal the reality that an approach to create an Equality Pennsylvania 2.0 operated by an out-of-state organization will not lead to results we hope for.
This organization won’t be Pennsylvania’s superhero
To state the issue clearly: LGBTQ advocates in Pennsylvania continue to push as hard as anyone can to move our issues forward. The reason we don’t have more laws enacted is a result of our state legislature’s composition. Fairness West Virginia coming in will siphon funding, resources, and power.
They are not more likely to get results than any existing organization in Pennsylvania. In fact, if we look at WV’s landscape, it’s unclear how Fairness West Virginia is planning to manage a PA initiative when they cannot even secure basic LGBTQ policy wins across their own state.
Fairness West Virginia does not have untold millions of dollars to invest in PA or sage wisdom they can only pass along to us after they gain total control of LGBTQ advocacy in our state.
The problem is that when push comes to shove, Fairness West Virginia will be leading their Pennsylvania project’s board and staff members to make calls that could be disconnected from Pennsylvania LGBTQ communities.
Political nonprofits do not largely have access to institutional foundation support as they don’t provide public services. When those groups aren’t deeply rooted in broader LGBTQ communities, they are forced to raise money from private political donor networks. They do this by messaging whatever is necessary with potential supporters. This is especially true of organizations with board members who don’t answer directly to the communities they pledge to serve. When Western PA LGBTQ leaders understand that a nearby board member of Fairness West Virginia’s Pennsylvania project is complicit in a decision to undermine LGBTQ advocacy in our state or take credit for other people’s work, what is their check and balance? There is none.
Vulnerable LGBTQ Pennsylvanians will be harmed when resources and power are less accessible. Marginalized LGBTQ Pennsylvanians will be hurt when decisions influencing lawmakers are not ultimately directed by Pennsylvanians but by an out-of-state nonprofit through an unaccountable project’s board.
Over the coming months, Fairness West Virginia will need to demonstrate relevance in PA in order to justify their project as they introduce themselves to donors at bar fundraisers. That’s a divergent goal from helping people. Do we honestly think if an out-of-state manager is presented with a deal in Harrisburg that requires them to decide between chipping away at our existing rights and holding the line with vulnerable LGBTQ Pennsylvanians, they would be able to make the right decision?
As an advocate within Pennsylvania, there have been many times I’ve quietly helped stop anti-LGBTQ developments in the General Assembly. I could have easily blown up headlines to get myself in the newspaper. Maybe it would have raised money and prestige for the organizations I am part of, but that would have been a disservice to LGBTQ Pennsylvanians. Given how this project has come about and the individuals involved, I fear that a moral compass would always be secondary to their bottom lines of finding ways to be relevant and raising money. Nothing has been offered as evidence that despite this framework they will make more ethical decisions than Pennsylvania LGBTQ communities can be for ourselves.
While they have yet to announce who they are planning to hire, I am concerned it will be someone who does not have deep roots in LGBTQ communities throughout the entire state, nor someone who would still be an active organizer embedded in state LGBTQ work years from now. That person, who may be personally nice or have some experience in Harrisburg, may more easily advocate for positions they are told to by Fairness West Virginia over LGBTQ Pennsylvanians. Every action they take will still be ultimately called by West Virginians.
Even as Fairness West Virginia eventually tries to distance itself from their Pennsylvania project, it’s clear to me how their current board and mission are the perpetual ingredients for a generalized LGBTQ organization to be adversarial to local LGBTQ communities and not effective collaborators in the long term towards our goals of equity and liberation.
We can speak for ourselves
The true intentions of Fairness West Virginia are stated right on their Pennsylvania project’s website. I hope people believe who they say they are: “Fairness Pennsylvania is the statewide civil rights advocacy organization dedicated to fair treatment and civil rights for [LGBTQ] Pennsylvanians.” They intend to be the organization for Pennsylvania — not a partner or one of many statewide stakeholders. Scroll to the bottom of the page and it instructs people to send their checks to Fairness West Virginia in Charleston.
Performative advocacy from political operatives and a couple of politicians at their events are not going to save the lives of LGBTQ youth. They might say they will, but how can they when vulnerable communities were never part of conceiving their efforts or have direct control over their operations? Self-determination of people in the advocacy impacting their lives is essential to success.
As they launch and begin to attempt duplicating, dismantling and destabilizing decades of existing advocacy efforts in order to brand themselves as the one and only statewide LGBTQ organization in PA, I continue to hope they will course correct to stand behind LGBTQ Pennsylvanians — not speak on our behalf as the sole authority over our communities. There is still time for Fairness West Virginia to completely change direction. After all, their stated mission on their website is to be: “…the statewide civil rights advocacy organization dedicated to fair treatment and civil rights for [LGBT] West Virginians.” This objective says nothing about taking over neighboring states.
Where can we go from here?
Fairness West Virginia is demonstrating that their principles can reconcile with bulldozing over generations of LGBTQ work in Pennsylvania without blinking. Having tokenizing coffee meetings with several dozen LGBTQ people in 2023 to find board members for their project in Pennsylvania doesn’t count as a partnership.
What could Fairness West Virginia do at this point? They could issue a public statement apologizing for their actions — including how it is wrong for any out-of-state organization to claim to launch the new monolithic civil rights organization for all LGBTQ Pennsylvanians. They could divest their Pennsylvania project into a PA-based organization with LGBTQ community organization leaders on their board. They could identify true gaps in LGBTQ advocacy in Pennsylvania and send whatever resources they have raised so far to LGBTQ Pennsylvanians engaged around that area of work. They could promote LGBTQ organizations in PA or ask LGBTQ organization lobbyists in Pennsylvania today how they could help.
What can you do? When there is a fundraiser invite for Fairness West Virginia’s project in Pennsylvania: decline. If you know someone who said yes to being on their Pennsylvania project’s board, explain how this effort is inherently problematic. In general, if your local LGBTQ organizations are not universally co sponsoring an event with an outside enterprise like Fairness West Virginia’s Pennsylvania initiative, don’t lend your support.
I join with many others in hesitating to share my thoughts publicly on these developments. It would be much easier to be off the record with a reporter. The last thing I want is for someone to think my perspective is just one of an advocate in a war of organizations related to ‘turf’ issues. That could not be further from the truth.
I was among the young advocates who decided in 2011 to raise awareness about the former Equality Pennsylvania engaging in conduct harming young LGBTQ advocates. While I was thanked by many for the courage to say something, some were not happy about my “airing community laundry.” It was the right thing to do then, and I believe this is the right thing to do now. I have spent my life caring deeply and successfully fighting for LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.
The term “Fairness” is entirely subjective. Fairness does not mean justice, equity or liberation. What’s fair to you may not be fair to us. There is nothing ‘fair’ about West Virginia’s hostile takeover of LGBTQ advocacy in Pennsylvania.
Just because a state doesn’t currently have a mainstream LGBTQ group does not give a divine right for an outside group to come in to take us over when we didn’t ask for it. Is Equality Ohio going to start an Equality New York next?
No matter how it’s dressed up, Fairness West Virginia is about to steamroll LGBTQ communities in Pennsylvania with a smile. Will we be smart enough to say no? The policy work ahead in PA is too important to remain silent.
We’ve been here before in PA when outside organizations want to profiteer off of us. We will survive Fairness West Virginia’s project. I know that together as LGBTQ Pennsylvanians, we will succeed in the end because we are strong and resilient.
Pennsylvania
Trump's former doctor gives health update, calls out Wray as FBI affirms bullet struck former president
A former White House doctor released a letter Friday stating that former President Trump is “rapidly recovering” following the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and that there is “absolutely no evidence” he was hit with “anything other than a bullet.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, who took issue with testimony given earlier this week by FBI Director Christopher Wray, said “I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well.”
Jackson, who is Trump’s former physician, said, “I have continued to monitor his health and well-being, along with his primary care physician, since the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on the evening of July 13th.
“During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass. There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet,” he added. “Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.”
Wray did not mention glass in his testimony. He said, “With respect to former President Trump, there is some question about whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.”
After Jackson’s letter was released, the FBI issued its own statement to Fox News Digital, “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”
“The would-be assassin fired multiple rounds from a relatively close distance using a high-powered rifle, with one bullet striking the former President, and now the Republican Nominee for President, in his right ear,” Jackson continued.
FBI WANTS TO INTERVIEW TRUMP AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: SOURCE
Trump raises his fist after being shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
“As a former White House Physician for 14 years, who served during three presidential administrations, and served as the appointed physician for both President Obama and President Trump, I fully understand the global significance of this attempt on the life of the former President and the current Republican Nominee for President,” Jackson added.
“As such, I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well,” Jackson concluded. “He is rapidly recovering from the gunshot wound to his right ear. I will continue to be available to assist President Trump and his personal physician in any way they see fit and will provide updates as necessary and with the permission of President Trump.”
TRUMP RALLY BULLET TRAJECTORY ANALYSIS CONTRADICTS FBI ‘SHRAPNEL’ TESTIMONY ON CAPITOL HILL: REPORT
Trump is seen being escorted off the campaign event stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
In an interview Thursday on FOX Business’ “Kudlow,” Jackson said it was “absolutely ridiculous” for Wray to suggest that Trump might not have been struck by a bullet.
“This degrades any level of credibility that this man may have had – after years of weaponizing the FBI and the DOJ against the president,” Jackson said. “It was absolutely a bullet, I examined it. There was a track of a bullet.”
Jackson also praised the creation of a bipartisan House task force to investigate the Trump assassination attempt.
Trump is pictured after being shot during the campaign rally. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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“We don’t have any confidence in the number one law enforcement agency in this country right now. And if [Wray’s] going to come make statements like that, he better have some evidence of what he’s talking about,” Jackson said. “There was no fractured glass on the teleprompters or anything else.”
The FBI told Fox News Digital Thursday its priority was learning more about the reclusive would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, and his motive.
“Since the day of the attack, the FBI has been consistent and clear that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims,” a spokesperson said.
“FBI Director Wray provided extensive congressional testimony on Wednesday about the FBI’s investigation. This was a heinous attack and the FBI is devoting enormous resources to learn everything possible about the shooter and what led to his act of violence.”
Fox News Digital is told the FBI’s Shooting Reconstruction Team was still examining evidence from the scene – including recovered bullet fragments.
In 2015, Shapiro, then a Montgomery County commissioner, gave the Philadelphia Inquirer his assessment of Greenberg’s political and philanthropic work.
“He’s a major employer in the region and he’s wonderfully philanthropic — for Jewish causes, educational causes and other community organizations,” Shapiro told the paper.
Another co-founder of Susquehanna International Group is even more well-known in the world of Pennsylvania school choice advocacy: billionaire Wall Street trader Jeffrey Yass. He’s emerged as a major Republican donor nationally and an inescapable power broker within the commonwealth, despite his nearly nonexistent public profile.
Both Greenberg and Yass have been involved in bankrolling the school choice movement for more than a decade in Pennsylvania.
“We are not in this to run charter schools, to manage charter schools. This is purely altruistic,” Greenberg told WHYY in 2015, when asked about his support for Williams’ mayoral campaign. “We view this as helping kids have a choice who are trapped in failing, oftentimes violent schools.”
Along with fellow suburban Philadelphia billionaire and SIG co-founder Arthur Dantchik, Greenberg and Yass were at one point the main donors to Students First, a political action committee founded in 2010 to support school choice candidates.
Shapiro accepted $175,000 from that PAC between 2012 and 2016, according to campaign finance records. During that time, he was a Montgomery County commissioner and, by 2016, was running for attorney general.
The donations to Shapiro’s attorney general campaign so troubled Philadelphia’s teachers union that it quietly pulled its endorsement at the last minute, multiple news outlets reported.
The union declined to comment at the time, but a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Spotlight PA that the union pulled its endorsement over the Students First donations. (The Pennsylvania State Education Association, a larger, statewide teachers union, continued to back Shapiro in that election.)
During the 2022 gubernatorial race, PACs connected to Yass spent millions during the primary to oppose eventual Republican nominee state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin). One of those PACs, Commonwealth Leaders Fund, ran anti-Shapiro ads during the general election but scaled back then stopped that spending shortly after Shapiro publicly pledged his support for vouchers.
Once elected, Shapiro sought to create such a program as part of the 2023-24 state budget.
“I believe every child of God deserves a shot here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and one of the best ways we can guarantee their success is making sure every child has a quality education,” Shapiro told Fox News in June 2023, late in the state’s budget process.
The remarks preceded the Republican-controlled state Senate’s sudden passage of a budget deal that included $100 million in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition for students in low-performing public districts.
But once the budget reached the state House, Shapiro received hard pushback from the lower chamber’s new Democratic majority. In a politically embarrassing setback, Shapiro agreed to veto the voucher dollars in exchange for the rest of the plan’s passage. That veto led to a nearly six-month budget impasse as state Senate Republicans claimed betrayal.
In his February budget address this year, Shapiro called on the legislature to again consider vouchers, though a top Republican leader later accused him of being unwilling to use his “bully pulpit” to get such a program across the finish line.
His ongoing support also hasn’t saved him from Yass-funded criticism.
For the past two years, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which does not have to disclose its donors, has spent prodigiously on ads and other lobbying to criticize politicians who don’t support vouchers.
The group, Commonwealth Action, has received significant dollars from the free market Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, according to that group’s most recent filings to the IRS. Commonwealth Partners runs two political action committees that are among the most active in Pennsylvania school choice advocacy, and both are almost entirely funded by Yass.
Between April 2023 and March 2024 — the last recorded filing — Commonwealth Action reported spending more than $973,000 on indirect education lobbying, which includes advertising and other methods aimed at shifting public opinion.
One video from last summer funded by Commonwealth Action accused Shapiro of “choosing special interests over kids.”
Commonwealth Action is linked to an established conservative organization in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Foundation. Since summer 2023, the exterior of the organization’s Harrisburg building, which is across the street from the state Capitol, has featured ads calling for Shapiro to pass the voucher plan. The foundation is now funding a six-figure newspaper and TV ad campaign.
“You lied, and you turned your back on us again,” Printess Garrett, a Harrisburg mother, says in a TV spot. “The only thing we have for our children is our word, and if we can’t trust in your word, we don’t have anything else.”
Moving forward, political sources told Spotlight PA they expect teachers unions and other public education advocates to be among the most skeptical of a Shapiro vice presidency.
On Wednesday, 28 education advocacy groups from across the country sent an open letter to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris arguing that “it is essential that our President and Vice President be wholly committed to our nation’s public education system and willing to fight against school privatization in all its forms.”
But to Payton, not considering Shapiro for backing a policy to aid parents in the hunt for what’s best for their kids is a bad choice.
“To blatantly disqualify somebody over something ideological like that is foolish,” Payton said.
Pennsylvania
Josh Shapiro emerges as potential Kamala Harris VP: A look at his record as PA's top law enforcement official
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is on the list of potential running mates for Kamala Harris if she becomes the Democrat nominee on the 2024 ticket.
Shapiro has built a reputation for himself in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, drawing harsh criticism from Republicans in the state while garnering strong support from Democrats. Pennsylvania Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Trump-backed candidate who ran against Shapiro for the governorship in 2022, said Shapiro never “finished a job” he was elected to do.
“He is always looking to move up the political ladder at the expense of the very people that voted for him,” Mastriano said, noting that homicides and murders increased more than 37% between 2017 and 2021, when Shapiro was the commonwealth’s top law enforcement officer. Philadelphia has long held one of the highest murder rates per capita in the country.
Shapiro “was too interested in being [g]overnor to perform his job as Attorney General,” Mastriano said.
“This is a pattern with him dating back to his time as a Montgomery County commissioner,” he added. “He was so interested in placating the Democratic Party, instead of fighting crime and protecting the citizens of Pennsylvania from the influx of fentanyl, he instead was suing the Little Sisters of the Poor back in 2020. Now he is championing for allowing biological males in women’s sports and locker rooms.”
PENNSYLVANIA GOV. SHAPIRO HITS CNN FOR NOT CALLING OUT TRUMP’S ‘LIES’ DURING DEBATE WITH BIDEN
Police investigate the scene where a Philadelphia police officer was shot on Jan. 26, 2024. (Elizabeth Robertson/Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Doug Mastriano, Republican gubernatorial candidate for Pennsylvania, greets attendees at a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 5, 2022. (Dustin Franz/Bloomberg)
Fred Trecce, former Philadelphia federal prosecutor, praised Shapiro’s performance.
“He did a yeoman’s job. He did a good job. He took some tough cases,” Trecce told Fox News Digital. “He had a couple of issues where they had a large case they had to let go because there were some issues about mishandling evidence. … It happened on his watch, but I’m not sure you can lay that at his feet. … He didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not sure he did anything a lot right, either. But he did what he needed to do to build himself a nice reputation, and ultimately, he was able to parlay [it] into being the governor.”
“I mean, they like him,” Trecce said of Pennsylvanians. “The general consensus among the people with whom I’ve spoken, which is completely unscientific, is that … he hasn’t made anybody angry.”
PA GOV JOSH SHAPIRO DELIVERS UPDATE ON TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, HONORS VICTIM SLAIN IN ATTACK
Vice President Harris and Gov. Josh Shapiro speak to the press during a stop at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia on July 13, 2024. (RYAN COLLERD/AFP)
Much of his career in the AG’s office, however, focused on holding companies that helped fuel the opioid crisis accountable, as Pennsylvania Democrat State Sen. Sharif Street told Fox News Digital.
“I think one of the things that both Gov. Shapiro worked on as attorney general and Vice President Harris worked on as attorney general, as well, was the opioid settlement[s],” Street said. “They went after the drug companies that were these big corporate interests that were mass-producing opioids like Percocet and OxyContin, flooding our communities with fentanyl, as well. And they took … them on and they made them pay for the harm that they’ve done.”
PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATS RALLY AROUND BIDEN, BLAST ‘PREMATURE’ SHAPIRO SPECULATION
Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, speaks during a campaign event at the Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple in Scranton on April 16, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg)
2016
Shapiro, now 51, ran for Pennsylvania’s attorney general in 2016 after Kathleen Kane resigned after her convictions for perjury, obstruction of justice and other crimes. He has expressed opposition to the death penalty, effectively continuing former Gov. Tom Wolf’s moratorium on the practice.
Prior to winning the AG election, he worked for corporate law firm Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young in Philadelphia.
The same year he won the title of top prosecutor, he launched an investigation into thousands of sexual assault allegations made against more than 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania and across the United States. Shapiro publicized the lengthy grand jury investigation findings for the public to read.
2017
In 2017, Shapiro was sworn in and successfully arrested dozens of people involved in a drug trafficking scheme in Wilkes-Barre and Luzerane County known as the “million dollar heroin ring.” His investigation, which began in 2016, ultimately led to the arrests of 36 suspects accused of dealing heroin and crack cocaine.
Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, speaks during a campaign event at the Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple in Scranton on April 16, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg)
STATE DEMOCRATIC LEADERS RALLY BEHIND BIDEN AFTER PARTY CHAIR SUGGESTS GOP PULL TRUMP’S NOM
“This ring of drug dealers was selling thousands of dollars’ worth of heroin and crack cocaine every day for more than a year – infecting Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding communities until we put a stop to it,” Shapiro said at the time. “The people of Luzerne County are fed up with the peddling of this poison in their communities. We hear you and today, we took 36 more dealers off the streets of Northeastern Pennsylvania.”
2018
The next year, Shapiro took over prosecution for a Penn State hazing death case in Contre County.
Shaprio ultimately got a 21-year-old member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity involved in the 2017 hazing death of Penn State student Tim Piazza to plead guilty to four counts of hazing and five counts relating to unlawful acts involving liquor.
JOSH SHAPIRO TELLS TRUMP TO STOP ‘S—TALKING AMERICA,’ ‘TRYING TO DIVIDE US’
In March 2018, he also got the former Bedford County District Attorney to plead guilty to 11 counts related to political corruption for protecting drug dealers from criminal prosecution.
President Biden and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro visit a coffee shop in Harrisburg on July 7, 2024. (SAUL LOEB/AFP)
2019
Shapiro and New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal sued the Trump administration and won a nationwide injunction blocking then-President Trump from implementing religious and moral exemptions that would allow companies to opt out of providing insurance to female employees for no-cost birth control.
“Women need contraception for their health because contraception is medicine, pure and simple. Families rely on the Affordable Care Act’s guarantee to afford care; before the ACA, families spent thousands of dollars in co-pays,” Shaprio said at the time. “Congress hasn’t changed that law, and the President can’t simply ignore it with an illegal rule. I will not allow the federal government – under the direction of the Trump Administration – to undermine the rights of women and violate the rule of law.”
PA GOV. SHAPIRO PROPOSES PLAN TO MAKE POWER PLANTS PAY FOR GREENHOUSE GASES
2020
Initially, during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, when approximately a third of Pennsylvania businesses shuttered under local mandates, Shapiro encouraged Pennsylvanians to report neighbors and businesses in violation of lockdowns, as Reason magazine notes.
“See a #COVID19 health and safety violation? Report it!”
His office stood by former Gov. Tom Wolf’s lockdown rules and went to state and federal court to pursue business owners who were not following guidelines.
However, in a 2022 interview with the Associated Press, Shapiro shared that he thinks the lockdowns that shuttered schools and businesses were “an area where … folks got it wrong.”
After the death of George Floyd later on in 2020, Shapiro worked with Wolf to help pass a statewide police misconduct database.
“After George Floyd and Walter Wallace … at that time, we had Republicans controlling the House and the Senate. With his leadership as attorney general, speaking up, he helped us get important reforms and make sure that all police officers had to be properly trained,” Street said.
IN 2024, PA GOV. SHAPIRO WILL FACE DEMANDING SCHOOL FUNDING CHALLENGES, PREPARE FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
As governor, much of Shapiro’s focus has been on improving police recruitment and retention.
Vice President Harris hugs then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro at Pittsburgh International Airport on June 21, 2021. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP)
“Governor Shapiro believes Pennsylvanians deserve to be safe and feel safe in this communities, and he is working to build safer communities by supporting the work of law enforcement and first responders, investing in our communities, promoting anti-violence initiatives, and pursuing smart reforms to keep people safe across the Commonwealth,” his website currently states.
Also in 2020, Shapiro worked with Wolf on a 10-year contract between Highmark patients and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to ensure that Highmark patients could receive care from UPMC doctors after the networks split. After the split, patients covered by Highmark insurance would have lost access to care at 11 hospitals before Shapiro got them to reach an agreement.
2021
In 2021, Shapiro and other attorneys general from 47 states secured a $573 million settlement with McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm that helped fuel the opioid crisis by promoting certain drugs and profiting off the drug addiction that boosted sales of those drugs.
Josh Shapiro (Rachel Wisniewski/Bloomberg)
He also worked with 45 other AGs to reach a $120 million opioid settlement agreement with Johnson & Johnson and DePuy.
2022
The following year, Shapiro targeted those fueling the opioid crisis again, announcing that he finalized agreements with CVS and Walgreens for Pennsylvania to receive more than $450 million in opioid settlement funds.
HARRIS SNUBS ONE OF THE FEW DEMS OPEN TO BEING HER VP: REPORT
“No amount of money will bring back the lives we lost, but today’s agreement with CVS and Walgreens will help to ensure Pennsylvanians suffering from opioid addiction get the treatment and recovery resources they need,” Shapiro said in a statement. “My office is determined to hold accountable the greedy companies that created and jet-fueled the opioid epidemic. Today’s action sends a message to drug distributors and pharmaceutical companies that we’re here to always fight for the people we serve.”
2023
Shapiro won Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race in 2023.
In perhaps the most controversial event to hit Shapiro since he became AG in 2016, his office agreed to pay $295,000 in September to quietly settle a sexual assault case brought against a close and trusted adviser, Mike Vereb, as Spotlight PA reported at the time, citing documents obtained through a records request.
In an interview with Politico last year, Shapiro did not address the accusations outright but pointed to his record defending victims of sexual assault.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is seen at the Celebration of Freedom ceremony during Wawa Welcome America on July 4, 2023, in Philadelphia. (Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images)
“I have a long and extensive track record of standing up for victims of sexual abuse, harassment. I led, I think, the most comprehensive investigation on behalf of victims of clergy sex abuse, prosecuted hundreds of sexual predators,” he told the outlet. “I have done extensive work with victims, listening to their stories, investigating their stories, and standing up for them. So I’ll take a back seat to no one when it comes to standing up for victims.”
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Trecce says Shapiro “did not stick his hand in the hornet’s nest of any case that one might end up getting stung by.”
“He’s not despised by conservatives,” and he’s well-liked among Democrats, Trecce said.
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Street said Shapiro has “throughout his career has brought people together.”
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