Two voter referendums on the Nov. 3 ballot — one in Lackawanna County and one in Luzerne County — would prohibit county employees and officials from making individual stock trades or prediction-market bets based on nonpublic information obtained through county service.
The referendums also would require annual reporting of ethics complaints and stock trades involving county, state and federal elected officials representing the counties. Action Together NEPA, a progressive organization, led a petition drive over the summer, and more than 40,000 signatures were obtained on petitions from voters in both counties to get the proposed measures on the ballots in both counties.
Action Together NEPA touted in a new release more than $800,000 in advertising, including billboards and digital ads. Ads have focused on stock trades made by U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a Republican from Dallas Twp.
Dwayne Heisler, of Lackawanna County, speaks on the stock trading referendum on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. JASON ARDAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“Some politicians only look out for number one. Take Congressman Rob Bresnahan … Pennsylvania’s number one trader in the House. One thing you can do: vote yes to ban insider trading,” the announcer in a campaign video says.
Bresnahan said he’s familiar with the ad campaign.
“We’ve seen it. I’m not sure how Luzerne County can control the United States federal government, but at the federal level, we passed a ban inside of Congress to ban insider trading,” Bresnahan said. “And I think what the biggest takeaway is — insider trading is wrong. You should not be directing your financial advisors to make trades with inside knowledge, and that’s nothing that we do. And if that was the case, I’m sure there would be plenty of ethics complaints to suggest that we were doing something to the contrary. I don’t trade my own stocks. I never traded my own stocks. I’ve always entrusted my financial advisors to make those different decisions.”
Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, Action Together NEPA Executive Director, speaks on the stock trading referendum on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. JASON ARDAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Bresnahan made about 650 stock trades in 2025, his first year in office, that yielded $8.51 million in volume, according to CapitolTrades.com. In July, the Republican-controlled U.S. House approved a bill that would restrict congressional stock trading.
Bresnahan voted for the bill, which did not advance in the Senate. Democrats criticized the July bill for being weak with loopholes and for being bundled with “poison pill” legislation that would impose national mandates on mail voting and voter registration.
Democrat Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, is running against Bresnahan in the 8th Congressional District election, a fiercely contested contest experts view as a toss up. A cornerstone of her campaign is criticism of Bresnahan’s stock trades.
Michelle Rothenbecker, of Luzerne County, speaks on the stock trading referendum on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. JASON ARDAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
On Thursday, supporters of the county ballot measures gathered in front on a Wilkes-Barre Twp. billboard showing a digital ad promoting the proposed county bans on insider trading. Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, Action Together NEPA Executive Director and Fairview Twp. resident, explained what inspired the ballot measures and the campaign.
“Because for far too long, Pennsylvanians have watched elected officials use their positions to grow their personal wealth through stock trading, while families they represent struggle with rising costs,” Hoffman-Mirilovich said. “We knew that there was an appetite for anti-corruption measures, for policies that increase transparency and enhanced ethics reforms. … We need elected officials to put public service over self-service, and we are holding them accountable in every way available to us.”
Luzerne County Councilman Chris Belles, a Democrat, supports the referendum but said he is unsure how county employees or officials are able to benefit from insider trading.
“I don’t know what kind of information I’m privy to, or that people in the county are privy to, in order to participate in insider trading, but I certainly understand the spirit of what the petitioners are going for,” Belles said. “And I signed the petition myself, so I support it.”
Walter Griffith, a Republican and a former Luzerne County controller and councilman, said insider trading “is already illegal” and claims the proposed ballot measure “does nothing more than require additional work by the administration” by requiring annual reporting of ethics complaints and stock trades.
The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 was the first significant step in regulating insider trading, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began to more aggressively pursue insider trading cases.
The 2012 STOCK Act currently requires lawmakers to disclose trades over $1,000, but watchdog groups and critics claim delayed filings, minimal fines and weak enforcement do not stop lawmakers from using unfair advantages to profit in the stock market.
Hoffman-Mirilovich said the county ballot measures would not create a heavy work burden on county personnel by requiring the annual reporting of ethics complaints and stock trades.
“This data is actually already publicly available,” Hoffman-Mirilovich said. “It is very easy to search and just repost. The burden is not as it has been presented because it is publicly available information, and the way the referendum is worded is that it’s just the publicly available information. It does not ask for additional information to be gathered.”
During a Luzerne County election board meeting in August, Republican board member Rick Morelli criticized the referendum’s lack of specificity on which state and federal officials must be included in the annual reporting. Hoffman-Mirilovich responded to that criticism on Thursday.
“So the counties would, the individual counties, the way that the wording is set up is to allow for the commissioners in Lackawanna and the county council in Luzerne to set some of those additional parameters, but it is specifically asking that those that are representatives of it, of the county, be included,” Hoffman-Mirilovich said.
Dwayne Heisler, a Scranton Democrat, also spoke at Thursday’s gathering by the Wilkes-Barre Twp. billboard.
“Voters can vote yes to increase transparency and mandate a chance for real ethic reforms in these counties with their history of incredible corruption,” Heisler said.
A federal probe into corruption in Luzerne County begin in 2009 when the “kids-for-cash” charges were filed against former county judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. Both judges ended up with prison sentences for pocketing $2.8 million in kickbacks from backers of private juvenile detention centers.
In 2010, former Luzerne County commissioner Greg Skrepenak received a prison sentence for taking $5,000 in gifts from a developer. Robert Cordaro and Anthony “A.J.” Munchak, former Lackawanna County commissioners, were both convicted in 2011 and received prison sentences for extorting cash bribes and kickbacks.