{"id":237210,"date":"2026-07-07T03:30:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/237210\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T03:30:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:30:51","slug":"the-fall-of-josh-shapiro-pennsylvania-governor-collapses-on-the-political-waterfront-jonathan-turley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/237210\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fall of Josh Shapiro: Pennsylvania Governor Collapses on the Political Waterfront \u2013 JONATHAN TURLEY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Below is my column in Fox.com on the recent decision of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to join the ranks of Democrats calling for packing the Supreme Court. It is a disappointing moment for many of us who hoped that Shapiro could offer a moderate voice in the upcoming elections, resisting the rise of socialists and communists in his party. Instead, he proved to be just another politician thinking of the next election rather than the next generation.<\/p>\n

Here is the column:<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D. Pa.) has finally reached his Terry Malloy moment. In the classic movie, On the Waterfront, the character tells his brother of losing it all; his shot to be a champion and a person of respect: \u201cYou don\u2019t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could\u2019ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let\u2019s face it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapiro decided to deliver his defining moment on MS NOW\u2019s \u201cMorning Joe\u201d when he abandoned all principle and decided to join other Democratic establishment leaders in offering up the Supreme Court to the radical left. Shapiro used the common coded reference to court packing, calling for \u201cradical reform of the Court.\u201d The only \u201cradical\u201d reform being seriously discussed is packing the institution with an immediate liberal majority to reverse a series of recent decisions and to greenlight an equally radical agenda for changes to our political system.<\/p>\n

What is so disappointing is that Shapiro could have truly been a contender, an alternative to the cringing, accommodating politicians who are yielding to the demands of the mob. Figures from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg have recently embraced the scheme to show their bona fides to a rising socialist and radical movement in the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Shapiro could have been different. He could have offered the country moderation and pushed back on the radical elements of his party. Shapiro was reportedly rejected as a vice presidential candidate due to being Jewish and is a member of a party that is careening toward open anti-Semitism. He could have been that mature voice in his party cautioning restraint before destroying one of our core institutions.<\/p>\n

Instead, he chose to just be another bum in American politics.<\/p>\n

Shapiro told MS NOW:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need radical reform that\u2019s actually going to ensure that the voices of the people are heard from, that the voices of the people are represented in the three branches of government. We don\u2019t have that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comment echoes the remarks of other court-packers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who insisted \u00a0the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against \u201cwidely held public opinion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court was never designed to be the \u201cvoice of the people.\u201d On the contrary, it was meant to be a countermajoritarian check on the people\u2019s impulse. It is that body that is designed to stand against the majority to protect minority interests and to maintain a constitutional system meant to blunt popular impulse.<\/p>\n

In my book,\u00a0Rage and the Republic<\/a>, I discuss how the Framers sought to avoid a direct democratic system, which had failed repeatedly in history. These systems (based on channeling public demands) became what Benjamin Rush called a \u201cmobocracy.\u201d The Supreme Court plays a vital part in preventing our Republic from destroying itself.<\/p>\n

For years, professors and pundits have quietly urged a hostile takeover of the Court to remove the barrier to fundamentally changing our system. Now, on the 250th anniversary of our Republic, they are close to getting their way.<\/p>\n

Years ago<\/a>, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans \u201cwill never win another election.\u201d However, he warned that \u201cthe Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.\u201d Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.<\/p>\n

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has\u00a0put packing<\/a>\u00a0the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, \u201c[We\u2019re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Carville declared, \u201cIf the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should\u00a0expand the Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0to 13. F\u2014 it. Eat our dust. Don\u2019t run on it. Don\u2019t talk about it. Just do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Shapiro has joined these ignoble ranks.<\/p>\n

Shapiro and others are demanding the radical reforms despite the current Court repeatedly ruling against the Trump Administration, including most recently on birthright citizenship. Without acknowledging that the decision again showed the Court\u2019s independence, Shapiro griped, \u201cthis case should have taken a nanosecond to decide and it should have been nine nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does that mean?\u00a0 Should the courts not have heard arguments, or should the Supreme Court have issued an immediate ruling from the bench during oral arguments?<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, that is enough for Shapiro to toss the Court to the mob. It is transparent and frankly pathetic.<\/p>\n

Shapiro added that too much power was being given to the Executive Branch. This is a court that just ruled against the President on issues from citizenship to tariffs. It has drawn sharp rebukes from President Trump for curtailing his powers.<\/p>\n

Now Shapiro appears ready to\u00a0repeat his controversial move against his neighbor<\/a>\u00a0and exercise a type of adverse possession against the Court. However, he lacks the courage (as do figures like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries) to come out and call it court packing. They simply refer to \u201cradical\u201d changes.<\/p>\n

It is part of conditioning voters to the type of structural changes contemplated by the left to guarantee Republicans \u201cwill never win another election.\u201d Most voters still oppose court packing. You have to wait until voters are angry enough to take a hammer to a system that remains the oldest, most stable democracy in history.<\/p>\n

The Court could well fall in the coming years to this mad frenzy, but it will be preceded by the fall of figures like Josh Shapiro. He and his establishment colleagues are deluding themselves into believing that they will be spared in this mobocracy that they are making.<\/p>\n

Refusing to have his state participate in the 250th celebration<\/a>\u00a0on the Mall and offering up the Supreme Court will not appease an increasingly violent and anti-Semitic far-left movement.<\/p>\n

Despite his own pandering to the mob, the socialists recently chanted \u201cyou\u2019re next<\/a>\u201d when they saw Jeffries\u2019 image on a screen at a New York victory party.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s armchair revolutionaries like Josh Shapiro will soon be treated as today\u2019s reactionaries by the very mob that they are trying to enlist. What will be left is a lament of what Shapiro could have been at this moment in our history. As Terry Malloy said, he \u201ccoulda had class. [He] coulda been a contender. [He] could\u2019ve been somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of \u201cRage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Below is my column in Fox.com on the recent decision of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to join the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-237210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}