PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In his first Philadelphia-area interview since winning office, Pennsylvania Governor-elect Josh Shapiro promised to hit the ground running on the issues he campaigned on.
“Investing in our schools and promoting public safety,” he said live on KYW Newsradio Friday morning. “Every person has a right to be safe and feel safe in our communities, and [also] helping grow our economy to actually get us moving again.”
He also vowed to protect what he sees as Pennsylvanians’ fundamental freedoms, including abortion and voting rights, and to use his veto pen to “stop any of those bad things that come from the Legislature.”
With the way control of the state House appears at the moment, he likely won’t have to use that pen often. Democrats are poised to take the majority, though the final tally is still too close to call.
Up until this point, the GOP-controlled Legislature has pushed for a constitutional amendment to restrict abortion access, but Shapiro said that proposal is now dead.
Related
“I think it’s dead for two reasons,” he explained. “One, it looks like Joanna McClinton and the Democrats are going to be in charge of the House. They’re obviously not going to pass it. But also, as I’ve made clear, if they tried to move forward with it, they pay a political price for that. It’s clear that the good people of Pennsylvania do not want the politicians in Harrisburg restricting their freedom — their freedom to vote or their freedom to make decisions over their own bodies. … They’d be foolish to try and move forward even if they had the votes, and it’s clear that they do not have the votes to do that anymore.”
Even if Democrats take the House, though, it’d be by a thin margin. Shapiro hopes to build a broad bipartisan coalition.
“We have a responsibility not just to win an election with this broad bipartisan coalition, but to govern that way,” he added. “Investing in public education and public safety, growing our economy and cutting costs — these are hardly partisan ideas. These are things that should be able to bring people together, and so I have a responsibility to continue to govern in that way to bring Republicans and Democrats around the table. Now, they have to come to the table in good faith ready to work with me, and I think they will. And I think we can actually demonstrate to Pennsylvanians again that state government can work and that we can get real things done for them.”
Gun violence in Philadelphia was a priority for Shapiro as attorney general, and he expects that to carry over to the governor’s office. He said more state resources need to be put into policing, both for staffing and training budgets.
“We need real accountability in law enforcement, which does not always exist,” he said. People need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law when they are wreaking havoc on our neighborhoods.
“In addition to the investments in law enforcement, I think we have to be real about some of the factors that lead to crime in our communities, whether it’s poverty or a lack of quality education in some areas, a lack of economic opportunities, a lack of mental health and trauma support services.”
Related
Shapiro handily defeated state Sen. Mastriano, who had little support from GOP leaders in the state or financial backing nationally. The former U.S. Army colonel gained a platform by criticizing Gov. Tom Wolf's COVID-19 policies and became a prominent supporter of former President Donald Trump's challenges to the legitimacy of the 2020 election, joining others outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
When asked if Mastriano has contacted him to concede the race, Shapiro replied, “No, but who cares? The people pick the winner, not him.”
For more on Shapiro’s plans for handling inflation, gun violence and other issues, listen to his full interview on KYW Newsradio in the player below: