Josh Shapiro Chooses Teachers Unions Over Students

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal

Nancy Pelosi infamously stated that to find out what ObamaCare contained, Congress had to pass the bill. This week, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro surpassed that twisted logic: He instructed legislators to pass one of his own campaign promises—so he could veto it.

The Pennsylvania Senate voted twice last week in a 24-hour span, with bipartisan support, for a new $100 million school-choice program. Dubbed Lifeline Scholarships, the program would provide low-income children in the Keystone State’s lowest-performing public schools with education-opportunity accounts to offset costs of attending a private school. Mr. Shapiro had voiced his support for the scholarships last year on the campaign trail, making waves by bucking the teachers unions—a major campaign contributor—and their decades long opposition to school choice. Why? “It’s what I believe,” he said in October.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Shapiro reiterated his support on Fox News, where viewers saw, perhaps for the first time, a swing-state Democratic governor invoking God and committing that he would ensure “every child has a quality education.”

Read more in the Wall Street Journal