* The editorial boards of The Citizens’ Voice, The Times-Tribune and The Hazleton Standard-Speaker endorse Democrat Josh Shapiro, 43, a Montgomery County commissioner and former state representative.
* Indeed, Shapiro would be far more likely than Rafferty to use the office’s power to address major state issues outside the realm of criminal prosecution alone — consumer protection, anti-trust advocacy relative to huge health insurance and hospital mergers, fair housing, environmental protection and so on.
* But Shapiro is more likely than Rafferty to instill a vision making the office an instrument of progress for the commonwealth. He has the potential to become not simply the next attorney general, but the most innovative attorney general.
Scranton Times-Tribune, Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice, Hazleton Standard Speaker: Shapiro likely to instill a vision of progress
The Editorial Board – October 27, 2016
The broad scope of the state attorney general’s power is reflected in the candidates seeking the office. Both are qualified but in significantly different ways that ensure different priorities and approaches to wielding that power.
The editorial boards of The Citizens’ Voice, The Times-Tribune and The Hazleton Standard-Speaker endorse Democrat Josh Shapiro, 43, a Montgomery County commissioner and former state representative.
Republican state Sen. John Rafferty, 63, also of Montgomery County, is in his fourth term and is vice chairman of the Judiciary and Law and Justice committees. He also is a former prosecutor for the state attorney general’s office.
Rafferty cites Shapiro’s lack of prosecutorial experience. But the attorney general’s office, as Shapiro says, is not the state’s 68th district attorney’s office.
Indeed, Shapiro would be far more likely than Rafferty to use the office’s power to address major state issues outside the realm of criminal prosecution alone — consumer protection, anti-trust advocacy relative to huge health insurance and hospital mergers, fair housing, environmental protection and so on.
About 40 percent of state attorneys general nationwide had not been prosecutors. And the office requires the sort of executive experience that Shapiro has managing Pennsylvania’s third largest county, which has a workforce of about 3,000, more than three times more than the attorney general’s office.
Both candidates can be relied upon to restore a calm focus on business in the wake of the Kathleen Kane scandal hurricane, to help fight the opioid epidemic and otherwise attend to law enforcement issues.
But Shapiro is more likely than Rafferty to instill a vision making the office an instrument of progress for the commonwealth. He has the potential to become not simply the next attorney general, but the most innovative attorney general.
Read the endorsement here.