SCRANTON — Lackawanna County’s election board approved placing a question on the November ballot asking voters to ban insider trading by county officials and employees, with Luzerne County’s election board expected to act on a similar proposed ballot measure later this month.
Lackawanna’s election board composed of commissioners met Thursday to consider a petition initiating a referendum on a proposed Home Rule Charter amendment barring county elected officials and staff from trading individual stocks or making prediction market bets based on “nonpublic information obtained in the course of their official county service.”
The proposed amendment would also create a reporting requirement tasking the county solicitor with producing an annual report that includes all ethics complaints made against county, state and federal elected officials who represent Lackawanna County residents, as well as a summary of individual stock trades by those state and federal officials “based on publicly available information.”
The Board of Elections meeting commences in the Commissioners Conference Room at the Lackawanna County Government Center in Scranton Thursday, August 13, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The progressive nonprofit Action Together NEPA spearheaded the ballot-initiative efforts in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties, with residents Jennifer Partyka and Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, Action Together’s executive director, filing the petitions in Lackawanna and Luzerne, respectively. The petitions garnered more than 40,000 signatures between the two counties, per numbers Action Together Communications Director Jessica Brittain provided.
Commissioner Chris Chermak, Commissioner Thom Welby and other officials expressed or echoed concerns at Thursday’s election board meeting about elements of the proposed Lackawanna charter amendment, questioning whether it and its specific reporting requirements are overly broad, require officials to exceed their authority and may be legally preempted by existing laws.
County Solicitor Chris Caputo identified those as “substantive legal issues” that may exist with the proposed amendment, but said the election board’s role was limited to considering whether the petition was filed on time and contained the required number of signatures.
“Those are, I believe, the validity questions that this board of elections has the authority to determine,” Caputo said, noting substantive legal issues would be addressed by the county Court of Common Pleas should someone formally object to the referendum being placed on the ballot. “In my legal opinion, what the board of elections has before it today is an administerial authority. They have to determine if this petition was timely filed and if the requisite number of signatures are included on the petition. If those two concerns are met, then it is my opinion that the limited authority of the board of elections is to place it on the ballot.”
Lackawanna County Solicitor Christopher Caputo speaks during the Board of Elections meeting held in the Commissioners Conference Room at the county government center in Scranton Thursday, August 13, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
While there was some discrepancy about the petition’s total number of signatures — Brittain put the number at 17,318; county officials counted about 16,297 — both far exceed the 8,894 signatures required to appear on the ballot. The petition was filed on time.
Given that and Caputo’s legal advice, the board of Chermak, Welby and Commissioner Bill Gaughan voted unanimously to place the question on the Nov. 3 ballot, where it will appear absent a successful legal challenge in the intervening time.
Per the petition Partyka filed, the ballot question reads:
“Shall the Lackawanna County Home Rule Charter be amended to require specifically that the Lackawanna County Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics prohibit County elected officials and employees from engaging in individual stock trades or predication market bets based on nonpublic information obtained in the course of their official County service and provide annual reporting of ethics complaints and stock trades involving County, state, and federal elected officials representing the County?”
Brittain confirmed Thursday that “predication” market should instead read prediction market.
Lackawanna County Elections Director Beth Hopkins looks on during the Board of Elections meeting at the county government center in Scranton Thursday, August 13, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Lackawanna County Commissioners Thom Welby, Bill Gaughan, and Chris Chermak sit at the front of the Commissioners Conference Room during the Board of Elections meeting at the county government center in Scranton Thursday, August 13, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Lackawanna County Commissioners, Bill Gaughan and Chris Chermak look on during the Board of Elections meeting at the county government center in Scranton Thursday, August 13, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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Lackawanna County Elections Director Beth Hopkins looks on during the Board of Elections meeting at the county government center in Scranton Thursday, August 13, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Luzerne County’s election board next meets Wednesday, when it’s expected to act on the ballot question proposed there. It reflects essentially the same language with minor, county-specific differences.
The Luzerne County Accountability, Conduct, and Ethics Commission would be responsible for the reporting requirement if the attempt to amend Luzerne’s Home Rule Charter via the ballot measure is ultimately successful.
When Action Together launched the signature-collection effort in June with a goal of banning insider trading by county officials, it cited frustration over “widespread stock trading scandals in Washington and stalled efforts to pass a federal ban on insider trading in Congress.”
Locally, a stock-trading controversy has dogged Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan despite his insistence he had no involvement in the hundreds of trades he disclosed in 2025.
With Bresnahan’s support, the House of Representatives passed last month legislation that would restrict stock trading by members of Congress and impose unrelated voter ID requirements that made the prospect of broad bipartisan support for the bill highly unlikely.
The “Stop Insider Trading Act” legislation, which faces an uncertain future in the Senate, does not amount to a complete ban on congressional stock trading, but would generally prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and their dependent children from purchasing individual stocks. It would not bar members from holding or selling existing stocks, but would require them to publicly disclose in advance their intent to sell stocks or other “covered investments.”
Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, who is challenging Bresnahan in the 8th Congressional District, has used his stock-trading controversy as a cudgel against him during the campaign.
Action Together, meanwhile, celebrated the Lackawanna County election board’s action on the proposed ballot question as “a definitive victory for the grassroots movement that mobilized residents to demand accountability and integrity in local government.”
“We set out to challenge the status quo, and today, that challenge has officially reached the ballot box,” Partyka said in Action Together’s press release. “This November, we aren’t just electing officials — we are choosing to demand ethical standards that can no longer be ignored.”
Legal challenges remain possible.