During his 2022 campaign for governor, Josh Shapiro took flak from some in his own party for sounding ‘too conservative.’ He spoke about cutting corporate taxes, embraced energy production, and even took to national television to state his support for school choice.
His promises alarmed the far left, but attracted many in the middle.
Even many Republicans—persuaded by Shapiro’s moderate persona—supported him for governor. And given his continued messaging on issues like educational opportunity and ‘moving at the speed of business,’ it’s understandable why many still describe him as a “moderate” Democrat governor.
But Shapiro’s moderate image is far different from his far-left actions. Indeed, on issues ranging from education and energy to abortion and boys in girls’ sports, Josh Shapiro is anything except moderate.
For example, the vast majority of Americans—including independent voters attracted to a supposedly ‘moderate’ Shapiro—support protecting girls from being forced to compete in sports against biological males. But Shapiro has criticized as “extremist” those who take this position, including members of his own party. Far from moderate, Shapiro has aligned with his party’s most progressive wing on this issue.
On school choice—a policy also enjoying bipartisan backing—Shapiro once claimed to support Lifeline Scholarships to rescue kids trapped in the worst-performing public schools. But he singled out those scholarships for a veto shortly after taking office. And when asked if he would participate in the new federal school choice program, Shapiro’s spokesperson refused to take a position, even though opting out of the program would mean forfeiting education scholarship money to other states.
When it comes to energy, Shapiro’s moderate rhetoric also doesn’t match his liberal actions. He speaks of an “all of the above” energy agenda, but his “Lightening Energy Plan” is little more than a Green New Deal by a different name.
As a candidate, Shapiro said he had “real concerns about the impact” that joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative “will have on consumer prices, hurting families at a time when many are struggling really to put food on the table”—a position held by many on the Right. But Shapiro is now in court seeking to force Pennsylvania into RGGI—to the delight of the far left and the detriment of Pennsylvania’s economy.
The reality is that we have not had one new utility-scale gas project begin in the state since former Gov. Tom Wolf first forced Pennsylvania into RGGI. In fact, no RGGI state has any new natural gas power plant projects planned. Meanwhile, 22 other states not in RGGI, including Ohio and West Virginia, are planning and/or developing natural gas plants.
It doesn’t end there.
While most Democrats and many Republicans support abortion, Shapiro goes to the extreme. He has refused to defend the state law banning taxpayer funding for abortion. And he’s forced the Little Sisters of the Poor—Catholic nuns who care for the elderly poor—into a near-decade-long court battle to coerce them to violate their religious beliefs by providing contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their health plans.