{"id":239684,"date":"2026-07-09T21:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/239684\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T21:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:19:10","slug":"dem-house-nominee-in-pennsylvania-operated-business-without-workers-comp-insurance-in-apparent-violation-of-state-law-records-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/239684\/","title":{"rendered":"Dem House Nominee in Pennsylvania Operated Business Without Workers\u2019 Comp Insurance in Apparent Violation of State Law, Records Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBob Brooks, who has made his lawn care company a centerpiece of his campaign, went more than four years without insurance after canceling his policy<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tBob Brooks (@VoteBobBrooks\/X)\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s Seventh Congressional District, Bob Brooks, did not hold a workers’ compensation insurance policy at his lawn care company for more than four years, records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show, an apparent violation of state law.<\/p>\n

Brooks Lawn Care LLC, which Brooks founded in 2013, canceled its workers’ compensation insurance on Nov. 30, 2017, and did not take out a new policy until Dec. 28, 2021, according to state records. Pennsylvania law states<\/a> that workers’ compensation insurance is “mandatory for all employers who have one or more employees, whether they’re part-time or full-time, including family members.” Businesses that don’t hold a policy<\/a> face a $2,500 fine and up to one year in prison for each day the employer doesn’t have coverage\u2014that can increase to $15,000 and up to seven years in prison if the employer intentionally violated the requirement.<\/p>\n

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Brooks Lawn Care appears to have employed enough people to fall under that law during at least a portion of the time in which it did not have a workers’ compensation insurance policy. Brooks’s son, Austin Brooks, managed “six man crews” while serving as a foreman for the company from May 2017 to August 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Brooks, a longtime firefighters’ union official challenging incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R.), has made his lawn care company a centerpiece of his campaign as he positions himself as a tribune of the working class. His website<\/a> touts the “small family-operated snow removal and lawn care business,” stating that, “Whether plowing driveways at 4 a.m. or mowing lawns after a firefighting shift, Bob has never stopped hustling to provide for his family.” Profiles of the candidate in Politico<\/a> and Time<\/a> have zeroed in on Brooks Lawn Care as well.<\/p>\n

The lack of workers’ compensation insurance is particularly striking given Brooks’s own history on the topic. Brooks, a retired firefighter, has served as president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association since 2021. In 2024, as leader of the organization, he successfully advocated<\/a> for a state law to expand workers’ compensation insurance to increase coverage for first responders with post-traumatic stress injury.<\/p>\n

Brooks’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

News of Brooks’s insurance snafu comes as the former firefighter attempts to flip a district Republicans took in 2024 and which President Donald Trump carried by 3 points that same year. Brooks gathered a long list of primary endorsements that included Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (D.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). Brooks said<\/a> in May that Shapiro asked his union to back a Republican for state treasurer in 2024 because the Democrat in the race had opposed the governor as a potential running mate for former vice president Kamala Harris. Shapiro denied<\/a> the claim, and Brooks later said he “misspoke and made an inaccurate comment.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Brooks berated union firefighters who also work as volunteer firefighters off the clock as “scab[s]” and “shitbags” in social media posts, the Free Beacon reported<\/a> last month. Several volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania’s seventh district told the Free Beacon they took issue with his comments, with one saying, “This guy is speaking poorly of good people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Brooks, who has made his lawn care company a centerpiece of his campaign, went more than four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1583,59,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-239684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bob-brooks","tag-labor","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}