Raymond Philip Shafer (March 5, 1917 – December 12, 2006) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 39th governor of Pennsylvania from 1967 to 1971. Prior to that, he served as the 23rd lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967 and as a Pennsylvania state senator from 1959 to 1962. He was a national leader of the moderate wing of the Republican Party in the late 1960s.
Shafer was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and spent his childhood in Meadville. He graduated from Allegheny College in 1938 and Yale Law School in 1941. Following brief stints practicing law in New York City and Meadville and United States Navy service as an intelligence officer and on PT boats during World War II, Shafer entered politics as a district attorney in 1948 and then as a state senator. He was elected lieutenant governor in 1962, under Governor Bill Scranton. Shafer was active in that role and succeeded the term-limited Scranton as governor in the 1966 election. Shafer became a prominent voice among moderate Republicans and oversaw constitutional reforms in Pennsylvania, the formation of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, expenditures for health and education programs, and proposed a state income tax, which proved unpopular but was later enacted by his successor, Milton Shapp.
Limited to one four-year term as governor under the prior state constitutional rule, Shafer was not a candidate in the 1970 gubernatorial election. He left office in 1971 with his popularity waning in the midst of fiscal strain and negative reaction to his tax proposal, though some of his administration's major initiatives have had lasting significance. In his later career, he chaired what became known as the Shafer Commission at the request of President Richard Nixon, which recommended the decriminalization of personal marijuana possession and use within the home. He also resumed law practice in Meadville and served in other business and consulting roles in the private and public sectors. He died in Meadville in 2006.
Raymond Philip Shafer was born on March 5, 1917, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, the youngest of the five children of the Rev. David Philip Shafer and his wife Mina Belle (née Miller). In 1933, Shafer's father moved the family to Meadville, Pennsylvania, to accept a position as pastor of the First Christian Church. Shafer became an Eagle Scout and as an adult was presented the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America. He graduated from high school in Meadville in 1934 as valedictorian of his class.
After finishing high school, Shafer attended Allegheny College from 1934 to 1938, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and served as class president. He graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science and was a candidate for a Rhodes Scholarship. At Allegheny, Shafer was an accomplished athlete, achieving all-Pennsylvania honors in basketball and all-American honors in soccer. In 1938, Shafer enrolled at Yale Law School and earned a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1941. While at Yale, Shafer participated in intramural sports, barrister's union, and moot court. Several Yale classmates, such as Bill Scranton and Gerald Ford, would help shape his future political career. The summer after graduating from law school, in June, Shafer sat for the New York State bar exam and, on July 5, he married Jane Harris Davies, whom he had met at Allegheny. The couple went on to have three children together: Diane (born 1942), Raymond Philip Jr. (born c. 1945), and Jane (born 1953, died 1999). Shortly after their marriage, the Shafers settled in New York City and Ray joined the law firm of Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts.
In 1942, Shafer entered the United States Navy as a naval intelligence officer and later served on PT boats. He participated in over 80 combat missions during World War II on PT boats as commanding officer of PT-359 and later as executive officer of Squadron 27. As Squadron executive officer, Shafer sailed aboard PT-375, one of the first PT boats to penetrate the defenses of Manila Bay, Philippines, during the Battle of Manila. Shafer earned the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, as well as the rank of lieutenant during his tour in the Pacific theater.
The Shafers returned to Meadville after the war, where Ray entered private law practice. His political career began in 1948 when he was elected district attorney of Crawford County, a position Shafer held until 1956, serving two terms. In 1958, Shafer ran for a seat in the State Senate to represent the 50th District, consisting of portions of Crawford and Mercer counties. He defeated five-term state representative Edward M. Young in the Republican primary in May, 55% to 45%, aided significantly by a better than 8-to-1 showing in Crawford County. Shafer prevailed over the Democratic nominee, Harold B. Turner, in the November general election by a similar margin, 54% to 46%. While a state senator, Shafer began to accumulate a liberal-leaning voting record in support of such initiatives as anti-housing discrimination.
Lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania (1963–1967)
In March 1962, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Scranton tapped Shafer as his running mate in that year's gubernatorial election. Scranton had been Shafer's classmate at Yale Law School, and both were part of the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Shafer accepted Scranton's offer and became the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. The Scranton–Shafer ticket won the election by a margin of nearly a half million votes over the Democratic ticket led by Philadelphia mayor Richardson Dilworth and State Representative Stephen McCann, the House majority leader. Scranton and Shafer were inaugurated as governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, in January 1963.
As lieutenant governor, Shafer took a more active role in state government than his predecessors had and chaired Pennsylvania's delegation to the 1964 Republican National Convention. During Scranton's unsuccessful campaign for president of the United States that year, Shafer assumed some of the day-to-day responsibilities of the governorship in Scranton's stead. The press took notice of Shafer's activity as lieutenant governor, with The Republic in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, reporting in November 1964 that Shafer's speaking schedule was nearly as rigorous as Scranton's and that Shafer had begun to assume responsibility for steering some of the Scranton administration's initiatives, speculating that Shafer himself might be a candidate for governor to succeed the term-limited Scranton in 1966. Initiatives that Shafer led at Scranton's request included the selection of a superintendent of public instruction, leadership of a private sector outreach tour regarding Scranton's unemployment compensation proposal, and chairmanship of the administration's legislative policy committee.
Bill Scranton was limited to one term under then-existing state law and the media considered Shafer a potential successor as the Republican nominee. U.S. Representative Richard Schweiker had also indicated interest in seeking the nomination. On January 10, 1966, Shafer formally announced his candidacy for governor. The same day, Pennsylvania Attorney General Walter Alessandroni, Shafer's running mate, announced his own candidacy for lieutenant governor. Both Shafer and Alessandroni were endorsed by Scranton, U.S. Senator Hugh Scott, and Schweiker, who had withdrawn from contention. The 1966 election was marked by tragedies. Alessandroni was killed in an aviation accident during the campaign and won the nomination for lieutenant governor posthumously; Ray Broderick was named to replace him on the ticket. Former governor David L. Lawrence collapsed and fell into a coma during a campaign appearance for the Democratic nominee, wealthy Philadelphia businessman Milton Shapp, and died later that November.
In the general election campaign, including in a television debate between Shafer and Shapp in October, Shafer attacked Shapp's record as a businessman and Shapp charged that Shafer had obstructed important legislation, such as highway funding, as a state senator. Shafer and Shapp also disagreed sharply over price controls for milk; Shafer indicated that he would reform milk price controls to ensure fair market prices were placed, but Shapp insisted that Shafer's arrangement would effectively continue the status quo of price controls and argued that abolition of the controls and a free market approach was superior. Heading into the weekend immediately prior to the election, The Times-Tribune in Scranton (whose editorial board had endorsed Shapp) reported that most polling showed the race between Shafer and Shapp to be relatively even and opined that Shapp had run a more effective and spirited campaign, though The Philadelphia Inquirer reported less than a week before the election that Republican-commissioned polls showed Shafer ahead of Shapp by an average of 9.2% with Shapp falling further behind. On election day, Shafer and Broderick ultimately defeated Shapp and his running mate, Leonard Staisey, by a margin of nearly a quarter of a million votes, 52.1% to 46.1%, with the remainder of the votes scattered across minor candidates.