Pennsylvania is a state where there are still Democrats who call themselves “moderates.” But no state has provided a better example of the difference between calling yourself moderate and actually showing some independence from the Democrats’ leftist activist base.
For example, the state’s Sen. Bob Casey Jr. claims to be both “pro-life” and “pro-gun rights” while opposing even the mildest restrictions on abortion and supporting even the most draconian limits on the ability of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights. But Casey — the son and namesake of one the last real pro-life major Democratic officeholders, Bob Casey Sr., who was governor of Pennsylvania from 1986 to 1994 — is nothing compared to his father’s latest successor, current Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Shapiro ran for governor in 2022 claiming to be a supporter of school choice, and up until last week he remained an enthusiastic backer of a bill that would create “lifeline scholarships” that could be used to pay tuition and education-related expenses for students in the worst-performing public schools in the state. The bill was a compromise in which Republicans had been forced to accept something far short of a true school choice plan that would extend the right to opt out of the government system across the board. It also protected the public schools, including those 380 that fell into the category of the bottom 15 percent in the state, from being actually forced to compete with private and religious institutions by guaranteeing that their funding
