In the wake of a third assassination attempt on President Donald Trump on Saturday, all five of Pennsylvania’s living former governors called on state leaders to make the safety and security of Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family a top priority.
“Combating political violence and keeping our elected officials safe should always be nonpartisan and a priority,” former Govs. Tom Wolf, Tom Corbett, Ed Rendell, Mark Schweiker and Tom Ridge said in a joint statement.
A 31-year-old California man was taken into custody Saturday after authorities said he tried to storm past security with guns and knives at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington attended by President Donald Trump and several top administration officials.
The bipartisan group of former Pennsylvania governors, including three Republicans and two Democrats, said the weekend’s incident prompted a renewed concern for Shapiro’s family, which was targeted in an arson attack at the governor’s official residence in April 2025. No one was injured in the attack, but the fire caused significant damage to the residence. A 38-year-old man charged in the attack pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison.
“For us, the attack on Pennsylvania’s First Family was particularly upsetting,” the governors said in their statement. “In the aftermath of that attack, we ask the state’s current leaders and legislators to make the safety and security of the governor and his family a priority.”
Violence against lawmakers from across the political spectrum have soared in recent years. At the U.S. Capitol, police say they are investigating 10 times more threats than they received in 2016, while threats to federal judges have doubled since 2021.
Following the arson attack, Shapiro and his family moved full-time to his private home in Montgomery County and the home underwent about $1 million in security upgrades recommended by state police. State police filed reimbursement forms for the upgrades on Friday, but state Treasurer Stacey Garrity declined to authorize the reimbursements, saying they “appear to have simply ignored the statutory limits and restrictions on spending and procurement.”
Garrity, a Republican candidate for governor who is looking to unseat the Democrat Shapiro in his bid for reelection, has maintained that her decision was not political. In a statement to TribLive, Garrity agreed that protecting politicians should be a nonpartisan issue, adding that she felt today’s joint statement wasn’t directed at her.
“I don’t think that the former governors’ statement was about me or the legal requirement prohibiting taxpayer dollars from being spent on upgrades to the governor’s personal home,” Garrity said. “I do, however, believe that they are suggesting that politics should never play a role in decisions of security for the governor or any elected official and on that we all agree.”
Garrity said she felt officials could “take threats seriously and support security without disregarding the legal boundaries that govern how public funds are spent.”
Monday’s statement from the former governors made no mention of the blocked funding for security upgrades, but the governor’s office and several lawmakers drew that connection themselves.
“Stacy Garrity is putting her losing campaign ahead of her duty to Pennsylvanians and our freedom to govern ourselves,” U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, posted to X in response to the statement.
State Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said in an X post that protecting lawmakers isn’t a partisan issue.
“As political violence continues to plague our public discourse, Gov. Shapiro and his family deserve the protection recommended by the PA State Police,” Costa posted.
In a statement to TribLive, Shapiro spokesperson Rosie Lapowsky said Garrity’s refusal to reconsider denying the reimbursements is “a completely unprecedented and shameful political action without legal basis.”
State police “authorized these payments to fulfill a core mission of their duties – to protect the governor and his family after the Governor’s Residence was firebombed and rendered uninhabitable for several months,” Lapowsky added.
Lapowsky did not say whether the governor’s office intends to pursue legal action, but said that state police would be “exploring all options to ensure the state police’s authority is protected and the vendors who completed this work are paid in full.”
“The treasurer should put partisanship aside, follow the law, and show some humanity for a family that has experienced real trauma, the state troopers who protect them every day, and the vendors and workers whom the treasurer has now refused to pay,” Lapowsky said.