The Democrats' Giant Dilemma John Fetterman's blue-collar progressivism has endeared him

[Demsrule86]

59. That is how I feel Fetterman was so moved at a hearing to determine if a man could get out of

that he was too choked up to talk and the man sitting next to him said we all know that Fetterman supports this...

"Fetterman breaks down into tears when he talks about them. “These brothers have been in prison for 27 years, and one of them had children and a wife. And they grew up without their father and their husband for no reason,” he says. “I can’t turn my back and let these and other deserving people die in prison.”

“These brothers have been in prison for 27 years, and one of them had children and a wife. And they grew up without their father and their husband for no reason,” he says. “I can’t turn my back and let these and other deserving people die in prison.”


The Board of Pardons first voted on the Horton brothers’ clemency applications in late 2019. It failed 2-3, with Democratic Attorney General Shapiro most prominently casting a ballot against recommending them for a pardon. Fetterman wrote afterward that it was “truly one of the most dismaying days of my life.”

When their case came up again a year later, Fetterman publicly leaned on Shapiro. This was no small thing: Shapiro has a reputation for being cutthroat to get ahead. Fetterman was at the time toying with the idea of running for governor—a post Shapiro had for years been preparing to run for. He told a local reporter that his political future depended on what happened to inmates like the Horton brothers: “The trajectory of my career in public service will be determined by their freedom or lack thereof.”

The next time it was up for a vote, the board granted the Hortons mercy. And Shapiro spoke for Fetterman, who was choked up, when it was his turn to vote on Lee’s case: “I’m a yes, and I think the lieutenant governor is a yes as well.” (An aide for Shapiro says the attorney general initially “asked that the Board hold the Horton Brothers case under advisement in order to interview the brothers separately and review missing information from their files.”).