Josh Shapiro

Josh Shapiro is the People’s Attorney General, working every day to stand up to powerful institutions and protect Pennsylvanians’ rights. He was sworn in as Attorney General in January 2017 and re-elected to a second term in November 2020.

Josh grew up in Pennsylvania, watching his parents serve their community as a pediatrician and a teacher. Their example inspired Josh to pursue a career in public service; after graduating from the University of Rochester, he began working in government while putting himself through Georgetown Law at night.
After marrying his high-school sweetheart Lori and having their first child, Josh returned to his hometown and successfully ran for State Representative. As a Representative, Josh wrote and passed some of the toughest ethics laws in state history. His work earned him a reputation as a rare public servant willing to take on the status quo — “a blast of oxygen in the smoke-choked back rooms of quid-pro-quo Harrisburg.”

Then, as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania’s third-largest, Josh led a fiscal and ethical turnaround. He took early steps to combat the heroin epidemic, helped the first LGBT couples in Pennsylvania marry and fired Wall Street money managers to save retirees millions.
As Attorney General, Josh restored integrity to an office badly in need of reform. He has proven to the people of Pennsylvania that he has their backs by being unafraid to take on the biggest fights.

He exposed the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover up of child sexual abuse, identifying 301 predator priests and thousands of victims and spurring investigation across the United States. He forced an agreement between two of our Commonwealth’s largest insurance companies, protecting health care access for 2 million Pennsylvanians.

He twice secured national injunctions protecting women’s access to no-cost contraception as required by the Affordable Care Act. He is leading on criminal justice reform through reform in his own office and passing legislation to increase law enforcement accountability. He is fighting our country’s opioid epidemic on every front, including leading a multistate investigation into pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors.

During the 2020 presidential election, Josh defended Pennsylvania’s election result and defeated the former president in court dozens of times before and after Election Day. He provided steady, strong and competent leadership to a nationwide audience during the weeks following the election.

In his second term as our Attorney General, Josh will continue standing up for the people of Pennsylvania and enforcing the law without fear or favor.
Josh and Lori live in Montgomery County with their three school age sons, and their eldest daughter attends the University of Pittsburgh.