One of the most interesting contests in the nation outside those for the presidency and Congress is that for attorney general of Pennsylvania.
Heather Heidelbaugh is running for the Keystone State's top legal office against controversial Democrat and incumbent Josh Shapiro. Heidelbaugh highlights that Shapiro has had little opportunity to be an actual lawyer.
"He was in the state House of Representatives, then became Montgomery County Commissioner, and is now attorney general," she says.
The first time Shapiro was elected was in 2005, after he served as a chief of staff to then-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, D.-Pa., and he got his law degree in 2003.
Heidelbaugh quipped, "How can you run to be the No. 1 lawyer for the fifth largest state, when you have no real-world experience as a practitioner of law? I think there is an arrogance there and it's emblematic."
A graduate of the University of Missouri and its law school, Heidelbaugh, 62, was a partner at a major Pittsburgh law firm before she was 30. She chaired the state advisory commission on selection of a U.S. attorney, U.S. marshall, and federal judges.
Most recently, Heidelbaugh has been a fixture on TV and radio talk shows on politics.
She pointed out that Shapiro "publicly says he was very transparent when he first ran and that he was going to focus on policy. That is not what the Commonwealth Attorneys Act — the act that accompanies the election of Pennsylvania's attorneys general in 1980 — says that the attorney general's job is and jurisdiction.
"He joined the Association Democratic Attorneys General and whenever they don't like a policy, they go to the courts to undermine the other branches," she said.
"There is a separation of powers, and no one is a king in America."
Heidelbaugh outlined what she considers one of Shapiro's most blatant politicizations of his tenure.
"Josh Shapiro decided that he was going to sue the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity dedicated to providing end-of-life care to theelderly, because they asked for an exemption from the Affordable Care Act," she told us.
"There was an exemption for churches, but not for nonprofits. The Trump administration enacted an executive order to extend that exemption to nonprofits, and Josh Shapiro, without any regard for the First Amendment, sued them to make them get healthcare coverage that covers contraception and abortifacients."
This rationale was accompanied by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office announcing it was going arguing the case.
Justice Stephen Breyer asked the office if it would consider granting an accommodation, and the attorney general's office said "no."
Furthermore, its lawyer questioned the validity of the religious and moral convictions of the Little Sisters of the Poor — as if the government almost as a matter of judicial notice, cannot believe that a woman who has taken a vow of chastity and poverty to serve the elderly poor does not have per se valid moral beliefs.
Shapiro said, 'I will continue the fight against The Little Sisters of the Poor, because I don't know if 'their religious convictions are valid.'"
Heidelbaugh makes a striking contrast between herself and the incumbent attorney general and their contest is clearly one of the most closely-watched in the state.
(Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D. candidate at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.)