Senate approves governor’s nominees
HARRISBURG » Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s nominees for attorney general and state police commissioner won unanimous approval from Pennsylvania’s Republicancontrolled Senate — a smooth landing for his top two public safety appointees.
Michelle Henry, a career prosecutor from Bucks County before becoming Shapiro’s top deputy at the attorney general’s office, will fill the last two years of Shapiro’s elected four-year term as attorney general.
Col. Christopher Paris, a lawyer and career state police trooper, was selected by Shapiro to lead the Pennsylvania State Police, one of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies.
Henry, 54, worked closely alongside Shapiro for all six years while he served as attorney general before he tapped her to succeed him when he was sworn in as governor in January.
Henry told a state Senate committee that she does not plan to run for the office when voters select a new attorney general in the 2024 general election.
As an assistant district attorney in Bucks County, Henry handled some of the county’s highest-profile crimes, including murder cases.
In 2016, she took on the role of lead prosecutor in Montgomery County when the district attorney’s office there successfully tried thenAttorney General Kathleen Kane on charges of leaking protected investigative information and lying about it under oath.
Paris, 46, rose through the ranks of the state police in northeastern Pennsylvania to become one of four area operations commanders.
In 2014, Paris was in charge of the Blooming Grove barracks when a man, Eric Frein, shot and killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson and gravely wounded Trooper Alex Douglass. Frein was captured after a 48-day manhunt across northeastern Pennsylvania, convicted and sentenced to death.
With a complement of about 4,740 troopers, 1,720 civilian employees and a $1.5 billion budget, the Pennsylvania State Police is also one of the largest agencies in state government.
TikTok measure OK’d by Senate committee
A Pennsylvania Senate panel has advanced legislation prohibiting government agencies from downloading and using TikTok on state devices, arguing that the social media application poses a security threat.
The Senate Communications and Technology Committee has unanimously voted to send the bill authored by Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York County, to the full chamber for consideration. The proposal bans the app — and other services developed by TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance — from state-owned
devices and networks, including Wi-Fi.
The vote comes after a U.S. House committee, concerned that the company could collect users’ data and share it with the Chinese government, voted to give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok.
“Our constituents and the people of Pennsylvania’s personal safety and our national security are threatened by cyber vulnerabilities of systems that support our daily lives,” Phillips-Hill said. “It is imperative that Pennsylvania takes bold and decisive actions to prepare for and address those cybersecurity threats.”
Nearly two dozen states — including Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Florida — have acted to ban the application from government-owned devices.
In Pennsylvania, some government offices already prohibit employees from using TikTok on state-owned devices.
“This will ensure that Pennsylvania systems are protected from the cybersecurity threats caused by these rogue foreign governmental entities,” Phillips-Hill said.