* We find Shapiro — possessing a humane, expansive vision of the needs of this state and innovative strategies to address them — the best candidate to reorient a justice system degraded at the highest levels.
* Shapiro’s platform includes traditional criminal justice priorities, but also offers a more fully developed vision that is smartly tailored to the state’s most pressing needs, rural and urban.
* Erie, from its street corners to schools, needs an advocate with Shapiro’s mind and spirit.
Erie Times-News: Our view: Shapiro offers compelling vision for AG
The lewd emails exchanged by some of the state’s top law enforcement officials and aired by former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane brought into question not just the character of Supreme Court justices, state prosecutors and others in the legal community who exchanged them. They undermined public trust in the foundation of justice itself — equal treatment under the law.
That damage was further compounded by Kane’s imprisonment for leaking secret grand jury material to embarrass a political enemy and then lying about it.
Two highly qualified candidates running for the office pledge to repair the damage: Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, and state Sen. John Rafferty, R-44th Dist., also of Montgomery County.
We find Shapiro — possessing a humane, expansive vision of the needs of this state and innovative strategies to address them — the best candidate to reorient a justice system degraded at the highest levels.
Shapiro’s efforts to reform the office would target the most damaging legacy of the email scandal — the ugly air of bias it left hanging over the courts. Shapiro proposes among other reforms, the creation of a chief diversity officer to ensure the office reflects the people it serves.
“Some of the bad decisions that were made were a result of a lack of diversity around the table,” he said.
Rafferty was not available to meet with the Erie Times-News Editorial Board. It appears from his campaign literature and his record that he would make a capable attorney general in the traditional sense, focusing primarily on criminal justice. He pledges to restore integrity by implementing an ethics policy and not seeking higher office.
Shapiro’s platform includes traditional criminal justice priorities, but also offers a more fully developed vision that is smartly tailored to the state’s most pressing needs, rural and urban.
He pledges to partner with law enforcement in cities like Erie that are plagued by gun violence and heroin, and offers detailed strategies to confront these dangers from every conceivable angle. He’d not only shut down drug pipelines, jail dealers and treat addicts, he would address the overprescription of opioids and any misconduct by drug companies that market the addictive drugs.
He further distinguishes himself with his plan to act as the “people’s attorney general.”
Through expanded use of the public protection division of the office used to great effect in states such as New York, Shapiro said he could seek justice for Pennsylvanians on issues affecting daily life, such as scams targeting the elderly and drug price gouging.
Of special interest here, Shapiro pledges to use the courts, when necessary, to ensure that students in places like Erie receive the “thorough and efficient” public education the state Constitution guarantees them. He also contemplates using receivership as one way to hold accountable negligent owners of blighted properties.
Erie, from its street corners to schools, needs an advocate with Shapiro’s mind and spirit.
Read the endorsement here.