Bruce Castor
| Bruce L. Castor, Jr. | |
|---|---|
|
Attorney General of Pennsylvania Acting |
|
|
In office August 17 – 31, 2016 |
|
| Governor | Tom Wolf |
| Preceded by | Kathleen Kane |
| Succeeded by | Bruce Beemer |
| Solicitor General of Pennsylvania | |
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Assumed office March 21, 2016 |
|
| Governor | Tom Wolf |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Member of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners | |
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In office January 7, 2008 – January 4, 2016 Served with Josh Shapiro, Leslie Richards, Val Arkoosh |
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| Preceded by | Tom Ellis |
| Succeeded by | Joe Gale |
| District Attorney of Montgomery County | |
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In office January 3, 2000 – January 7, 2008 |
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| Preceded by | Michael Marino |
| Succeeded by | Risa Vetri Ferman |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
October 24, 1961 Abington, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater |
Lafayette College (AB) Washington and Lee University (JD) |
| Website | Official website |
Bruce L. Castor, Jr. (born October 24, 1961) is an American lawyer and retired Republican politician from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He was appointed as the first Solicitor General of Pennsylvania on March 21, 2016 and First Deputy Attorney General on July 20, 2016 effectively merging the two positions and making him next in line of succession to become Attorney General. General Castor became Acting Attorney General less than a month later.
Castor was an assistant district attorney from 1985 before becoming District Attorney of Montgomery County from 2000 to 2008. He next took a seat on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, an elected position he held until January 4, 2016, when he was succeeded by Joe Gale. Castor was defeated for re-election as Montgomery County's District attorney in November 2015. Castor is a partner in the Ardmore, PA, based law firm of Rogers Castor and a special assistant district attorney of Centre County, PA. On March 29, 2016, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Castor's appointment (back-dated to March 21, when he actually took office) to the newly created position of Solicitor General of Pennsylvania. While he operated freely as the de facto Attorney General and was widely recognized as such, Castor formally became the state's Acting Attorney General, replacing Kane, who resigned on August 17, 2016, following a conviction of a third degree felony perjury charge and several related misdemeanors. Governor Tom Wolf later nominated Bruce Beemer to fulfill the remaining balance of Kane's term which expired in January, 2017.
According to multiple reports, Castor explored a bid for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2014. A May 6, 2013, report in The Legal Intelligencer also mentioned Castor as a possible appointee to a vacant position on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Castor issued a public statement that he would not run for governor in 2014, but would accept the supreme court appointment if it was offered. Eventually, Tom Corbett, who had defeated Castor in the 2004 Republican primary for Attorney General (as discussed below), and later became governor of Pennsylvania, ended up being the only GOP governor or GOP US Senate office in the United States in 2014 to change parties in the General Election. This created speculation that if the State Republicans leaders, as had Castor, recognized the un-electibility of the incumbent, the GOP would have had a chance to hold the office with Castor or another Republican candidate.
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