As attorney general, he released the findings of a statewide grand jury report that revealed the abuse of children by Catholic priests and coverup by church leaders, and helped negotiate $1 billion for Pennsylvania as part of a national opioid settlement.

[8] He spent a few years of his childhood on a United States Navy base where his father, Steven Shapiro, served as a medical officer,[9] before the family moved to Dresher, Pennsylvania, a community in Upper Dublin Township in Montgomery County.

[23] After graduating from college, Shapiro moved to Washington, D.C., where he spent six months working in the Israeli embassy's public diplomacy department beginning in April 1996.

Shapiro trailed in polling at the beginning of the race, but he knocked on 10,000 doors and ran a campaign centered on increasing education funding and better access to health care.

[53] Kathio's Father, Inayat, was a Pakistani diplomat and significant Pennsylvania Democratic Committee donor[54] who co-chaired then presidential candidate Joe Biden's Scranton fundraiser.

In 2019, Shapiro led efforts to ensure that insurance holders of Highmark, a healthcare company, could receive treatment at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

[65] Shapiro supported enforcing Pennsylvania's anti-boycott law against Ben & Jerry's after the ice cream maker announced that it would not renew its license in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

[79] The bill passed, but garnered backlash from Democrats who said they were not made fully aware of its contents before they voted for it,[78] and Shapiro faced protests during public appearances afterward.

[83] In December 2019, Shapiro charged state representative Movita Johnson-Harrell with perjury and theft of funds from her own charity for such things as vacations and clothing.

As governor, I'd be in a policymaking role, together with the Legislature ... and I thought it was important when asked to state my position unequivocally that I would sign legislation to abolish the death penalty.

[108][109] He received endorsements from former governor Ed Rendell, state senator Anthony H. Williams, former Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair Marcel Groen, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

[119] On December 6, 2022, during his transition to the governorship, it was reported that Shapiro tapped several of his longtime aides to serve in high-ranking positions, including naming his campaign manager Dana Fritz as his chief of staff.

[136] On July 31, he issued an executive order establishing the Commonwealth Workers Transformation Program (CWTP), which provides grants to ensure that companies and contractors have the skilled workforce required.

[138][139] In September, he signed an executive order that established an artificial intelligence board to "assist employees in serving Pennsylvanians, keeping our communities safe and growing our economy".

[143] During his first year in office, he appointed financers Wendell Young, Uri Monson, and Bob Mensch to the State Employees' Retirement System (SERS), a $35 billion-asset board that manages pension reform.

[144] On November 6, Shapiro appointed Gregory C. Thall, a former budget secretary under Wolf, as the new chairman of SERS after Chris Santa Maria announced his retirement.

[145] Over three days in December 2023, dozens of Philadelphia transit officers staged a strike over a contract dispute with SEPTA, a standoff that had begun over eight months earlier.

[149] In June 2023, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that would increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, but the Republican-controlled State Senate thwarted the legislation.

[151] In 2024, Shapiro and other Democratic lawmakers attempted to include a raise in the minimum wage in that year's state budget, but due to Republican criticism, the proposal was withdrawn.

[155] President Biden said that Shapiro did "one heck of a job" in responding to the collapse; Minority Leader Brian J. O'Neill of the Philadelphia City Council said, "you couldn't ask for more from the governor.

[166] In January and February 2024, the Republican-controlled State Senate urged Shapiro to send the Pennsylvania National Guard to the U.S. southern border to help Texas resolve the growing numbers of migrants entering the country, but he declined to do so.

[178][179] In the 2024 Pennsylvania state treasurer election, Shapiro declined to endorse Democratic nominee Erin McClelland in her campaign against Republican incumbent Stacy Garrity.

[181] Shapiro supported the recount, but rejected calls by some, including the Bucks County Board of Commissioners, to count undated or incorrectly dated ballots, which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had previously ruled against doing.

[185][186][187] A February 2024 Franklin & Marshall College poll found that Shapiro had the highest approval rating among voters compared to his four predecessors as governor at a similar point in their terms.

[195] Despite public backing from several prominent Pennsylvania Democrats, including Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker, Senator John Fetterman intervened in the vice-presidential selection process, advising Harris on August 3 not to pick Shapiro because he was "excessively focused on his own personal ambitions".

[199][200] Shapiro has been described as a "mainstream" liberal Zionist whose views on the conflict and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement are similar to those of North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.

B. Pritzker, another possible Harris running mate who is Jewish, and insisting that the differences between Shapiro's stance and those of governors such as Walz and Andy Beshear are more pronounced than his supporters claim.

[207] Shapiro has supported cutting off state ties with entities that engage in boycotts of Israel, such as BDS, or of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

"[204] In a March 2024 interview, Shapiro voiced sympathy for Palestinian civilians and peaceful protesters, saying, "we also can't ignore the death and the destruction that's occurred in Gaza.

[225] Shapiro has been accused of comparing protesters to white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK),[226] saying that demonstrators were not "by any stretch" all antisemitic but suggesting that antisemitic speech is treated more leniently than white supremacist speech,[227][228] and comparing students allegedly being "blocked from going to campus just because they're Jewish" to the actions of the KKK, saying, "we have to be careful about setting any kind of double standard" when responding to the conduct of far-right and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.