Josh Shapiro

Joshua David Shapiro (born June 20, 1973) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the 48th governor of Pennsylvania since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the attorney general of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2023 and was on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners from 2012 to 2017.

Raised in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Shapiro studied political science at the University of Rochester and earned his Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University. After that, he worked as a senior adviser to U.S. senator Robert Torricelli. Shapiro was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2004, defeating former Republican U.S. representative Jon D. Fox. He represented the 153rd district from 2005 to 2012. Shapiro was elected to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2011, marking the first time Republicans lost control of Montgomery County. Serving on the board from 2011 to 2017, he held the position of chairman, and in 2015, was also appointed chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency by Governor Tom Wolf.

Shapiro was elected Pennsylvania attorney general in 2016, defeating Republican John Rafferty Jr., and was reelected in 2020. As attorney general, he released the findings of a statewide grand jury report that revealed the abuse of children by Catholic priests and coverup by church leaders, and helped negotiate $1 billion for Pennsylvania as part of a national opioid settlement. In the 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, Shapiro ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and defeated Republican nominee Doug Mastriano in the general election by a landslide.

On April 13, 2025, Shapiro and his family survived an arson attack at the governor's mansion, hours after holding a Passover Seder.

Early life and education

Joshua David Shapiro was born on June 20, 1973, in Kansas City, Missouri. He spent a few years of his childhood on a United States Navy base where his father, Steven Shapiro, served as a medical officer, before the family moved to Dresher, Pennsylvania, a community in Upper Dublin Township in Montgomery County. His father Steven works as a pediatrician in East Norriton, Pennsylvania, and his mother, Judi, was a teacher.

Shapiro was raised in a Jewish household. At age 6, through his synagogue, the Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park, and the Forman Hebrew Day School, he began writing letters to Avi Goldstein, a Soviet Jewish refusenik in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia, and enlisted others in an international pen pal program he called Children for Avi. He attended high school at Akiba Hebrew Academy in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. He was a basketball team captain during his senior year. During high school, Shapiro spent five months studying and volunteering in Israel with his classmates, as part of a "service project" requirement, which they completed through "a program that took them to a kibbutz in Israel where he worked on a farm and at a fishery." The program also included service on an Israel Defense Forces base. According to a spokesperson in 2024, Shapiro was "at no time engaged in any military activities".

Shapiro attended the University of Rochester, majoring in political science. In 1992, he was the first freshman ever elected student body president of the university. He graduated ''magna cum laude'' in 1995. While at Rochester, in 1993 Shapiro published an op-ed in the ''Campus Times'' student newspaper titled "Peace not Possible", in which he claimed that peace "will never come" to the Middle East. The ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' quoted it as follows: "Palestinians will not coexist peacefully. They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own." He also wrote that he believed then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was in danger of being assassinated by "his fellow belligerent Arabs". In 2024, a spokesperson for Shapiro said that Shapiro's position had changed since he wrote the op-ed and that he now supports a two-state solution.

While working on Capitol Hill, Shapiro enrolled at the Georgetown Law Center as an evening student and earned his Juris Doctor in 2002.

Early career

Capitol Hill

After graduating from college, Shapiro moved to Washington, D.C., where he spent six months working in the Israeli embassy's public diplomacy department beginning in April 1996. According to a Shapiro spokesperson, he worked there "to get foreign policy experience. His job largely involved educating the public about Israel." In September 1996, he began working for U.S. representative Peter Deutsch. He also worked as legislative assistant to U.S. senator Carl Levin and as a senior advisor to U.S. senator Robert Torricelli. While working for Torricelli, Shapiro planned foreign affairs tours in the Middle East and Asia, including a trip to North Korea. From 1999 to 2003, Shapiro worked as chief of staff to U.S. representative Joe Hoeffel, who represented parts of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania House of Representatives

In 2004, Shapiro ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the 153rd district. He faced the Republican nominee, former congressman Jon D. Fox. Shapiro trailed in polling at the beginning of the race, but he knocked on 10,000 doors and ran a campaign centered on increasing education funding and better access to health care. He was elected by a margin of ten percentage points over Fox. Shapiro was reelected in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

As a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, he built a reputation as a consensus builder who was willing to work across the aisle on a bipartisan basis. Following the 2006 elections, Democrats controlled the Pennsylvania State House by one seat, but the party was unable to unite behind a candidate for Speaker of the House. Shapiro helped broker a deal that resulted in the election of moderate Republican Dennis O'Brien as Speaker of the House. O'Brien subsequently named Shapiro as deputy speaker of the house. In 2008, following revelations that Democratic House minority leader Bill DeWeese was involved in a corruption scandal, Shapiro called for him to step down, citing him as a "symbol of a broken system" and arguing that DeWeese remaining in leadership would hurt Democrats statewide in the 2008 elections.

In 2007 and 2009, Shapiro introduced three separate bills into the House to divest state funds from Iran and later Sudan. The "bill and similar efforts around the country make a moral argument against investing in countries with a history of terror or genocide." "The idea of pulling out of companies that do business with Iran is based on earlier such efforts that crippled the apartheid South African government. But thus far, the South African campaign has not been replicated." In 2010, Shapiro, U.S. senator Bob Casey, and state representative Dan Frankel pushed for national legislation to allow states' pension funds to divest from business engaging with Iran.

While a state representative, Shapiro was one of the first public backers of then-Senator Barack Obama for president in 2008. This was in contrast with much of the Pennsylvania Democratic political establishment, which supported Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary.

From 2006 through 2017, Shapiro also practiced corporate law at the firm Stradley, Ronon, Stevens, and Young in Philadelphia.

Montgomery County commissioner

Shapiro won election to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2011. The election marked the first time in history that the Republican Party lost control of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. Shapiro chaired the board from 2012 to 2016.

Shapiro's commission duties centered on social services and administration. Castor, the only Republican member of the board during Shapiro's tenure, praised Shapiro's work, calling him "the best county commissioner I ever knew" and "very good at arriving at consensus." In 2016, Shapiro voted for an 11% tax increase, which was an average increase of $66 in property taxes. During his tenure, the board of commissioners implemented zero-based budgeting and shifted county pension investments from hedge funds to index funds. Democrats retained a majority on the board of commissioners in the 2015 election, as Shapiro and his running mate, Val Arkoosh, both won election.

In April 2015, Governor Tom Wolf named Shapiro the chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

Pennsylvania attorney general

Shapiro announced his candidacy for Pennsylvania attorney general in January 2016. While he had practiced with Philadelphia's Stradley Ronon firm and chaired the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, he had never served as a prosecutor. Shapiro campaigned on his promise to restore the office's integrity following Kathleen Kane's resignation and also promised to work to combat the opioid epidemic and gun violence.

His campaign was supported by President Barack Obama, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and businessman and former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, who was among the largest donors to Shapiro's campaign. He won the Democratic primary for attorney general in April 2016, defeating Stephen Zappala and John Morganelli with 47 percent of the vote. In November 2016, Shapiro narrowly defeated the Republican nominee, state senator John Rafferty Jr., with 51.3 percent of the vote.

Shapiro was reelected in 2020, defeating Republican nominee Heather Heidelbaugh with 50.9% of the vote. He received 3,461,472 votes, the most of any candidate in Pennsylvania history, and outran Joe Biden in the concurrent presidential election.

Tenure

On May 7, 2019, the Wikipedia Community flagged edits made to this page, saying they may "rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject" and could have been written in return for payment, both of which violate Wikipedia's terms of use. Edits were made by paid communications staffers from Shapiro's campaign, according to Lancaster Online.

In 2017, Shapiro announced the roundup of a "Million Dollar Heroin Ring" under "Operation Outfoxed" in Luzerne County. One of those arrested was Maura Kathio, previously charged in a major bath salts case in 2016. Kathio's Father, Inayat, was a Pakistani diplomat and significant Pennsylvania Democratic Committee donor who co-chaired then presidential candidate Joe Biden's Scranton fundraiser. All the charges in Operation Outfoxed were abruptly dismissed after allegations that Shapiro had mishandled the sealing of wiretapped recordings.

In 2018, Shapiro offered former Bedford County district attorney William Higgins a plea deal for corruption charges. Higgins pleaded guilty to soliciting sexual favors from accused criminals in exchange for lenient sentencing recommendations. The plea deal guaranteed no prison time. Higgins had initially faced a maximum prison sentence of 62 years.

Long before Shapiro took office in 2016, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office launched an investigation of allegations of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church. Shapiro inherited the investigation, and in August 2018 released the results of an extensive grand jury report. The report alleged the sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by over 300 priests. It prompted similar investigations into the Catholic Church in other states, such as an inquiry launched by then-Missouri attorney general Josh Hawley.

In January 2018, Centre County district attorney Bernard Cantorna referred the case of the death of Tim Piazza, a Penn State student who was hazed, to Shapiro, because Cantorna had previously served as a criminal defense attorney for one of the defendants. Multiple defendants were given plea bargains.

In 2019, Shapiro led efforts to ensure that insurance holders of Highmark, a healthcare company, could receive treatment at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The settlement allowed 1.9 million insurance recipients to continue using their existing doctors as in-plan providers rather than being forced to switch either medical providers or insurance providers.

When serving on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons as attorney general in 2019, Shapiro cast the fewest votes in favor of commutation, denying 24 out of 41 pardons and being one of only two board members to vote against more cases than in favor.

In May 2019, Lancaster County newspaper LNP reported that members of Shapiro's office staff had edited Shapiro's Wikipedia entry to describe him "as a 'rising progressive star' who has 'earned a reputation as a consensus builder eager to take on the status quo and challenge powerful institutions to protect the people of Pennsylvania'". Staffers for Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, Senate minority leader Jay Costa, and Senate majority leader Jake Corman also reportedly edited their bosses' Wikipedia pages. The then- executive director of the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission said that he did not see this practice as illegal under the state's ethics law.

In 2021, Shapiro announced an opioid settlement with Johnson & Johnson and three other U.S. pharmaceutical distributors that resulted in Pennsylvania receiving $1 billion. The settlement resolved thousands of lawsuits against the companies for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic.

Shapiro supported enforcing Pennsylvania's anti-boycott law against Ben & Jerry's after the ice cream maker announced that it would not renew its license in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Shapiro called BDS a "stain" that Governor Wolf was right to prevent from taking hold in Pennsylvania and said it "is rooted in antisemitism."

In August 2021, Shapiro settled the largest prevailing wage criminal case in U.S. history. Under the plea, Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc., paid nearly $21 million to 1,267 Pennsylvania workers.

He also joined a lawsuit against ITT Technical Institute, a for-profit educational institute, that resulted in a $168 million settlement (with about $5 million of that going to Pennsylvania students). In 2018, he reached an agreement with federal officials to prevent the distribution of blueprints for 3D printed firearms. In 2019, he came out in support of the legalization of recreational cannabis use by adults, joining Governor Tom Wolf and other leading Pennsylvania Democrats.

Conflicts with Larry Krasner

Shapiro and Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner repeatedly found themselves at odds during Shapiro's tenure as attorney general. According to ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', Krasner would joke that prosecutors who left his office to work for Shapiro were "war criminals" who had fled to "Paraguay", a reference to escape routes Nazis took in the aftermath of World War II. Shapiro condemned Krasner's jokes as "hateful".

In August 2018, Krasner referred the case of a Philadelphia police officer's fatal shooting of Jeffrey Dennis to Shapiro because Krasner had previously served as Dennis's criminal defense attorney. Dennis was in his car when he was "box din" by undercover officers in unmarked vehicles; three officers were injured after Dennis tried to evade them. In December, Shapiro announced no charges would be filed against the officers, saying, "violations of police procedure do not always rise to the level of criminal charges". Dennis's family subsequently sued the officer and city of Philadelphia for the incident.

Shapiro reportedly supported a bill in the Pennsylvania state legislature that turned over certain powers of the Philadelphia district attorney to the Office of Attorney General, including "the authority to prosecute the illegal possession, sale, or purchase of firearms". Supporters of Krasner criticized the bill as written in hopes of weakening Philadelphia's home rule authority. Representatives Chris Rabb and Mary Jo Daley, who voted against it, attested Shapiro had privately lobbied in favor of the legislation. The bill passed, but garnered backlash from Democrats who said they were not made fully aware of its contents before they voted for it, and Shapiro faced protests during public appearances afterward.

Actions taken in response to the Trump administration

Shapiro joined several other state attorneys general in opposing President Donald Trump's travel ban, and also sued Trump to block the implementation of a rule that would have made it easier for employers to deny health insurance coverage of contraceptives.

Shapiro was one of 20 electors the Pennsylvania Democratic Party chose to vote in the Electoral College for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020 United States presidential election.

Actions taken on the state legislature

In December 2019, Shapiro charged state representative Movita Johnson-Harrell with perjury and theft of funds from her own charity for such things as vacations and clothing. Johnson-Harrell served two months in prison before being released on house arrest.

In July 2021, Shapiro charged state representative Margo L. Davidson with theft by deception, solicitation to hinder apprehension, and Election Code violations after stealing public funds by filing fraudulent overnight per diem requests and various other expenses through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Comptroller's Office, as well as hindering a state prosecution. Davidson resigned from office, paid restitution, and was released without bail.

2022 gubernatorial campaign

Shapiro had long been expected to run for governor of Pennsylvania, and on October 13, 2021, he announced his candidacy in the 2022 election. In January 2022, Shapiro's campaign reported it had $13.4 million in campaign funds, which was described as a record amount for a candidate in an election year. Shapiro faced no opponents in the Democratic primary, and secured the nomination on May 17, 2022. He faced Republican nominee Doug Mastriano in the general election.

Shapiro ran on a platform of protecting voting rights, abortion rights, and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. His campaign was criticized by some progressives because of his support for capital punishment for "heinous crimes", his public feuds with Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner, and his compromising with police unions to pass police reform bills. Efforts to enlist a progressive primary challenge to Shapiro were unsuccessful. Shapiro later changed his position, now saying he opposes capital punishment and would sign a bill to abolish it.

During the leadup to the primary election, Shapiro's campaign released a statewide televised advertisement calling a Mastriano win "a win for what Donald Trump stands for", referencing Mastriano's stance on outlawing abortion and his efforts to audit the 2020 presidential election. The ad was seen as an "endorsement" of the Republican candidate Shapiro would want to face in the general election, with Mastriano seen as too extreme for swing voters to elect. Mastriano won the Republican primary and his closest opponent, former congressman Lou Barletta, later said that Shapiro's ads likely helped. The impact of Shapiro's ads on the primary is disputed as Mastriano was already in the lead.

Platform

Shapiro said that as governor he would protect abortion access in Pennsylvania and veto any bill the state legislature passes that restricts or outlaws abortion.

Before running for governor, Shapiro had supported capital punishment for what he called "heinous crimes". During his campaign, he announced that he now favored abolishing the death penalty in Pennsylvania, a reversal of his previous position. Shapiro was asked in a 2022 interview with ''Pennsylvania Capital-Star'' why his position changed, to which he responded:

hequestion is a fair one ... When I ran for ttorney generalin 2016, I said that the death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous of crimes. But then I got elected attorney general and I saw these cases come across my desk. I got closer to a system that I thought was in need of reform. And as attorney general I never once sought the death penalty. As governor, I'd be in a policymaking role, together with the Legislature ... and I thought it was important when asked to state my position unequivocally that I would sign legislation to abolish the death penalty.

Shapiro also said he would not sign any future death warrants for prisoners on death row.

Shapiro supports cutting Pennsylvania's nearly 10 percent corporate tax rate to 4 percent by 2025. He has proposed hiring 2,000 additional police officers across Pennsylvania, saying, the "more police officers we hire, the more opportunities we have for them to get out of their patrol cars, walk the beat, learn the names of the kids in the communities". Shapiro favors pardoning those convicted for possession of small amount of marijuana.

On efforts to mitigate COVID-19, Shapiro has broken with some in the Democratic Party and opposes mask and vaccine mandates. He prefers educating the public about vaccines' efficacy. Shapiro is also skeptical about Pennsylvania joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a market-based program to reduce some greenhouse gas emissions. He has proposed expanding Pennsylvania's clean energy portfolio for utility companies, greater electric car infrastructure and investing in clean energy research and development. Shapiro supports a Lifeline Scholarship bill, which creates education savings accounts for children in failing public schools that can be spent on approved expenses including tutoring, instructional materials and private school tuition.

Shapiro has proposed a plan that will allow for a $250 gas tax refund per personal passenger vehicle up to four vehicles per household. He proposed funding the proposal with funds from the American Rescue Plan. On the issue of vocational training, Shapiro has proposed increasing career and technical training in high schools, tripling state funding for apprenticeships and union skills programs, and creating a Pennsylvania office of workforce development. He also supports eliminating four-year degree requirements for state government jobs. Shapiro is a supporter of unions and has vowed to veto any "right to work" legislation.

Endorsements and support

Before his announcement, term-limited governor Tom Wolf endorsed Shapiro. He received endorsements from former governor Ed Rendell, state senator Anthony H. Williams, former Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair Marcel Groen, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. He was endorsed by the SEIU Pennsylvania State Council, four SEIU local unions consisting of over 80,000 SEIU members in the state.

On January 29, 2022, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party endorsed him by voice vote. The committee also endorsed his preferred running mate, state representative Austin Davis. Other union support included the Philadelphia Carpenters Union and Sheet Metal workers, the Western Pennsylvania Laborers' PAC, and the Electricians Union Local No. 5 in Pittsburgh.

Eight former Republican officials, including former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Sandra Schultz Newman and former congressman Charlie Dent, as well as the sitting Republican chairman of the Lawrence County Board of Commissioners, Morgan Boyd, endorsed Shapiro, with several calling Mastriano "extreme" and "divisive". Seven more former Republican officials, including former U.S. secretary of homeland security Michael Chertoff, endorsed Shapiro in August 2022 for the same reason.

Results

On November 8, 2022, Shapiro defeated Mastriano with 56.5% of the vote to Mastriano's 41.7%. He won 17 counties. Shapiro's victory was decisive and uniform across the state. The vast majority of President Joe Biden's voters in 2020 voted for Shapiro, as did many independents and a sizable segment of Donald Trump supporters. The only regions where Shapiro did not do better than Biden in 2020 were in "the most economically marginal, heavily minority" parts of cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, where turnout marginally decreased compared to 2020.

Governor of Pennsylvania (2023–present)

On January 17, 2023, Shapiro was sworn in on a stack of three Hebrew Bible

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