Democrat Josh Shapiro stopped in State College on Saturday to rally local party members in his campaign for Pennsylvania governor against Republican Doug Mastriano.
Speaking to a crowd of about 250 people at the Centre County Democratic Committee’s summer picnic, Shapiro laid out his priorities and positions on several issues, including the future of reproductive rights in the commonwealth after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Shapiro vowed to veto any bill that would further restrict abortion in Pennsylvania, contrasting his stance with Mastriano, who has said he supports banning the procedure without exception.
“I trust the women of Pennsylvania to make decisions over their own bodies,” Shapiro said.
He frequently called Mastriano and his positions “dangerous and extreme,” hitting the state senator for his ties to the far-right social media website Gab, which has been labeled a hot bed for hate speech resulting from its lenient moderation, and founder Andrew Torba, who has expressed anti-Semitic views.
Mastriano reportedly paid a $5,000 consulting fee to Gab, a site where the Anti-Defamation League said the Tree of Life synagogue gunman found a community of extremists who shared his white supremacist views. Mastriano issued a statement in July distancing himself from Torba and saying he rejects anti-Semitism. He also removed his own profile on the site.
“This is a place you only go if you want to speak to racists, if you want to speak to anti-Semites, if you want to speak to the kind of people who want to divide us as a commonwealth,” Shapiro said. “And yet that’s where my opponent is going for support. This is not normal.”
A Fox News poll released in late July showed Shapiro with a 10-point advantage over Mastriano.
Currently in his second term as Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Shapiro highlighted cases his office has brought both within Centre County — against Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc. for wage theft and against several landlords for charging student renters improper fees — as well as statewide and nationally, including those against a student loan servicer for deceptive practices, opioid manufacturers and the Catholic Church.
“We are unafraid to take on those big fights to stand up for the people of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.
He discussed a vision for education, workforce development and community safety.
For K-12 education, Shapiro said schools need to be well-funded with focused investments, including shifting away from standardized testing to broaden curriculum, ensuring all schools have mental health counselors and providing career and technical education in every high school
“I’ve talked about investing in schools that have been chronically underfunded like our rural schools and some of our urban schools,” Shapiro said. “But it’s not just about the check you write; it’s about how we invest that money. So I want to invest it in making sure we bring vo-tech to our classrooms. I want to invest it in making sure we have a mental health counselor in every school building. And I want to finally do away with our reliance on standardized testing.”
He also expressed support for better funding for state-related universities, including Penn State, but said those schools also need to hold the line on tuition. Penn State trustees approved a 5% tuition increase for 2022-23, although students from households making less than $75,000 will receive grants to offset the hike.
“I think we need to make sure we are investing more in higher education across the board,” Shapiro told reporters after his remarks. “We are 48th in the nation for what we invest in higher ed. We need to show that we care about investing in higher ed. I have also been clear though that I want to see, particularly in these times of high inflation, our state-related institutions hold tuition flat. They should not be raising tuition right now — Penn State, Temple, Pitt or Lincoln.”
Education investments are interconnected with economic development and improved job opportunities, he said.
“Making sure everybody’s connected to the internet at high speeds and affordable rates, investing in apprenticeship programs, investing in our infrastructure, making sure that we create a pipeline between great universities and the workforce here in Pennsylvania,” are among his priorities.
“That’s an essential focus of our economic plan, making sure that we do a better job of connecting our world-class universities like Penn State with the workforce, making sure we get students out of college into the workforce and do a better job of connecting them,” Shapiro said. “I think the commonwealth can be a force for that positive interaction between the private sector and our universities. We want to create innovation hubs around schools like Penn State to have that pipeline into the workforce.”
Shapiro was joined at Saturday’s event, held at the Penn State Golf Courses, by Centre County Democratic 82nd district state House candidates Paul Takac, D-College Township; 171st district candidate Robert Zeigler, D-Millheim; and 77th district incumbent Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township; as well as 15th District congressional candidate Mike Molesevich, state senator and recently elected Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Shariff Street, and Philadelphia state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta.
Kenyatta was there to speak on behalf of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate who is running against Mehmet Oz for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Pat Toomey. Kenyatta ran against Fetterman in the Democratic primary in May.
“I want you to know how easy it is for me to be here for John: Because I trust him to actually stand up for working people. Because I trust him to actually deliver for working families. Because I trust him to actually give a damn about Centre County,” Kenyatta said.
Kenyatta praised Fetterman’s positions on supporting abortion rights, banning federal office-holders from stock trading and increasing the national minimum wage to $15, while also echoing Fetterman’s frequent criticisms of Oz regarding his longtime New Jersey residency.
The Fox News poll in July showed Fetterman with a 47%-36% lead over Oz, but Kenyatta cautioned supporters not to assume a victory for the Democrat.
“Every election is a choice, and this is a serious choice,” he said. “We would make a mistake if we believed that this is just going to be a runaway election and so we don’t have to do a lot of work. This is going to be a close election.”
