beginning of September that she would be running for U.S. Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\nAt the same time, she is continuing to run for the office of Scranton mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not plan to run for Congress. I love being mayor and plan to continue to be mayor next year. The reason I am running for Congress is that it is going to be very hard for us to do our job in the city if the federal government continues to cut out our legs from underneath us,\u201d vocied Cognetti.<\/p>\n
No law in the state of Pennsylvania says one candidate can not run for two government positions at the same time, which is what Cognetti is doing.<\/p>\n
After the debate Thursday night, 28\/22 news asked Cognetti what she would say to voters who are hesitant about voting for her in the upcoming election because she is also running for Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made it clear tonight that other folks on stage with me tonight do have a record of interacting with the public, and that record is not good in either case. We need to keep moving the city forward. A vote for either of the candidates would send us all the way back to more than six years ago, when people were using the city government to enrich themselves,\u201d reasoned Cognetti.<\/p>\n
One resident, who spoke with 28\/22 News, said he is happy with what Cogentti has done for the city but thinks her focus is split between the positions she is running for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to be mayor here, awesome. Be mayor here, but keep your focus here. If you are going to run for Congress, then run for Congress. Don\u2019t do it while you are in the middle of a term. It just makes more sense to focus on one or the other,\u201d stated Scranton resident Brendan Chalk.<\/p>\n
Republican mayoral candidate Trish Beynon was also asked about Cognetti\u2019s loyalty to the city of Scranton.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think her priorities lie with Scranton? No. They do not lie with Scranton. We\u2019re a stepping stone for the next political position that she wants to attain,\u201d expressed Beynon.<\/p>\n
The two independent candidates for the Scranton mayoral seat are Gene Barrett and Rik Little.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to 28\/22 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE\/WYOU)\u2014\u00a0Thursday night\u2019s fiery mayoral debate in Scranton saw incumbent Mayor Paige Cognetti face three candidates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5837,2497,178,180,179,5838],"class_list":["post-6460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-incumbent-mayor","tag-paige-cognetti","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-u-s-congress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460","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=6460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}