Josh Shapiro sworn-in as Pennsylvania governor and declares victory a rejection of political extremism

Democrat Josh Shapiro was sworn in on Tuesday because the forty eighth governor of Pennsylvania at a festive inaugural ceremony in Harrisburg and known as his election victory a rejection of “extremism” whereas declaring his place in historical past because the “the subsequent hyperlink within the chain of progress.”

Surrounded by household, state authorities leaders, members of Congress and former governors, Shapiro put his hand on three Hebrew Bibles as he took workplace. One of many holy books got here from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the place in 2018 a gunman killed 11 folks, together with plenty of Holocaust survivors, within the deadliest antisemitic assault in American historical past.

“You additionally despatched a transparent message – Democrats, Republicans and independents – if you got here collectively to resoundingly reject extremism right here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro stated on a cold afternoon outdoors the state capitol. “Collectively, hope defeated concern. Unity triumphed over division.”

The previous state lawyer normal, Shapiro was elected in a landslide final yr, defeating Republican Doug Mastriano, a 2020 election-denying far-right state senator, with greater than three million votes – setting a brand new file for statewide candidates. He’s the third Jewish governor elected in Pennsylvania and broadly considered as a possible future Democratic presidential prospect.

Earlier within the day, Shapiro attended the inauguration of Austin Davis, 33, who turned the state’s first Black lieutenant governor. In his personal remarks, Shapiro celebrated the state’s custom of progress, however cautioned that its loftier values have usually come into battle with reactionary forces.

Shapiro additionally solid the “peaceable transition of energy” from now former Gov. Tom Wolf to his personal administration as additional affirmation that American “democracy endures.” That democracy, he famous earlier, “is just not a given.”

“This work is extra necessary now than ever earlier than, as a result of during the last a number of years, now we have been reminded during the last a number of years, of the fragility of our democracy,” Shapiro stated. “Right here in Pennsylvania, we didn’t enable the extremists who peddle lies drown out the reality. We confirmed that our system works, our elections are free and truthful, protected and safe.”

Pennsylvania in 2020 turned one of many key targets of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to, at first, cease the counting of respectable votes, and later, with the backing of Republican officers from across the nation, an unsuccessful bid to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

Earlier this month, Shapiro selected Republican Al Schmidt, a vocal opponent of Trump after that election, to be the state’s high elections official.

Schmidt was the lone Republican on Philadelphia’s elections board when Trump and his allies falsely declared a untimely victory in Pennsylvania after which sought to stop officers from finishing their rely of mail-in ballots.

Trump known as Schmidt out by title on Twitter, prompting a wave of harassment and threats, however he refused to again down. On January 6, Schmidt was among the many 12 people honored by Biden with the Presidential Residents Medal in a current ceremony marking the second anniversary of Capitol riot.

Although Shapiro in his speech didn’t rehash the specifics of his coverage agenda, he sought to ship a broader, hovering tribute to the concept of a “actual freedom” embodied by liberal objectives, like abortion rights, entry to public training and financial alternative, and a authorities “that respects you for who you might be – it doesn’t matter what you appear to be, the place you come from, who you like or who you pray to or select to not pray to.”

“Actual freedom,” he stated, “the place political variations trigger debate, however don’t give rise to demagogues.”

All through his speech, Shapiro, who spent the Martin Luther King Jr. Day vacation volunteering along with his household at a Jewish neighborhood heart within the capital, described his Judaism as each a information and ethical backstop.

“My very own religion teaches me that nobody is required to finish the duty, however neither are we free to chorus from it,” Shapiro stated, quoting as he did on election evening from Pirkei Avot, a Jewish moral textual content.

He added: “On this Capitol and all through our Commonwealth, now we have a singular duty to maintain doing the arduous and obligatory work to strengthen the democracy that was born right here 246 years in the past.”