With Vice President Kamala Harris on track to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, the question now is whom she will choose as her running mate.
The choice should be simple.
As Harris vets potential vice presidential nominees, none more closely matches her record of scandal, botched prosecution, and ineffective leadership than Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
In 2018, a longtime top aide to then-Sen. Kamala Harris resigned following a $400,000 sexual harassment and retaliation settlement stemming from his tenure working for Harris in the California Department of Justice. At the time, Harris’s office claimed that she was not aware of the situation.
Gov. Shapiro, too, saw one of his top aides resign in the wake of a sexual harassment accusation by a female employee. In September 2023, Shapiro’s secretary of legislative affairs, Mike Vereb, suddenly stepped down with no explanation. The following day, news broke that the resignation was connected with a sexual harassment allegation.
For more than a week, Shapiro avoided public comment. Pennsylvanians later learned that the allegations had led to a $295,000 settlement. Nearly a year has passed, and the Shapiro administration has avoided responding fully to multiple Right-to-Know requests seeking more information on how the governor handled the scandal.
Harris and Shapiro also share the distinction of having bungled major drug cases in their previous roles as district attorney and attorney general, respectively.
As San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris “failed to disclose information that clearly should have been disclosed” after a crime lab technician “allegedly took home cocaine from the lab, possibly tainting evidence and raising concerns about hundreds of cases,” the Washington Post reported in 2019. In the aftermath, Harris dismissed approximately 1,000 drug cases, “including many in which convictions had been obtained and sentences were being served.”
As Pennsylvania attorney general, Shapiro also made a mess of a major drug case in Luzerne County when his office waited longer than required to seal evidence. As a result, Shapiro’s office “withdrew all charges against 18 defendants” in what the Wilkes Barre Citizens’ Voice called “a huge blow to the attorney general’s office.”
Finally, Harris and Shapiro share a record of ineffectiveness in their current roles.
While the claim that President Biden tasked Harris with “fixing” immigration overstates the case, the president did charge her with delving into the causes of immigration from Central America to the U.S.
Yet, Harris has spent the last three-and-a-half years enabling Biden’s disastrous border policies that have not only failed to solve America’s border crisis but have arguably worsened it. In short, the Biden-Harris administration has been overwhelmingly ineffective at addressing one of voters’ top concerns.
Shapiro is no stranger to ineffectiveness himself. Despite his catchphrase that he “gets stuff done,” his 18-month tenure as Pennsylvania governor has been historically ineffective, achieving the rank of the “least productive of any Pennsylvania gubernatorial term in at least 50 years,” according to an analysis from the Commonwealth Foundation.
Shapiro has failed for two straight years to ensure passage of an on-time state budget. In 2023, he even broke a campaign promise to support school vouchers after he couldn’t get his own party on board in the state House. This year, he didn’t lift a finger to try again.
From scandal to prosecution disasters to leadership ineffectiveness, Harris and Shapiro share an unmatched—if unfortunate—record that makes them the perfect pair.
