{"id":69633,"date":"2025-12-24T16:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69633\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T16:28:07","slug":"the-year-in-local-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69633\/","title":{"rendered":"The year in local politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

McGloin resigns from county seat<\/p>\n

Matt McGloin, the former standout quarterback at West Scranton High School and later Penn State University who later played in the NFL, abruptly resigned his seat as a Lackawanna County commissioner. After much speculation, McGloin announced he was joining the coaching staff at Boston College with his former PSU head coach, Bill O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Elected in 2023, McGloin and Commissioner Bill Gaughan took office in January 2024 as the county\u2019s new Democratic majority commissioners, serving alongside Republican minority Commissioner Chris Chermak. McGloin became the fourth Lackawanna County commissioner in the past 20 years to resign from office, the others being Democrat Corey O\u2019Brien in 2015, Republican A.J. Munchak in 2011 and Democrat Randy Castellani in 2005.<\/p>\n

McGloin eventually pulled out of that Boston College position as well. What followed was a contentious, monthslong process that moved in and out of the courts until a special election was finally held. Democrat Thom Welby was elected to fill out the remainder of McGloin\u2019s term.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Paige Cognetti announces her reelection victory during her election party at Bukatini in Scranton on Tuesday, Nov. 04, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA\/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
\nDouble duty for the mayor<\/p>\n

Scranton\u2019s Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti comfortably won reelection in November for another term in City Hall, defeating independent Eugene \u201cGene\u201d Barrett and Republican Trish Beynon. Cognetti won comfortably despite announcing before the election that she would seek the Democratic Party\u2019s nomination in 2026 for the 8th Congressional District in hopes of challenging first-term Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas.<\/p>\n

The announcement had political observers watching the mayor\u2019s race closely, but it did little to dissuade Scranton voters from sweeping Cognetti into another term in City Hall. Cognetti received 9,701 votes to easily defeat Beynon, who garnered 3,589 votes, and Barrett, who tallied 3,553 votes, as well as independent Rik Little, who trailed with 154 votes.<\/p>\n

At an election night party, claiming victory, Cognetti said, \u201cAs we go into the congressional (election) year, I will continue to be mayor every single day. I will continue to work at City Hall as we do and continue to do great things there. I will continue to be a mom to my two kids and I\u2019ll also be running for Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ProtestorsProtestors gather on Courthouse Square in Scranton for a \u2018No Kings\u2019 protest in Scranton on Saturday, June 14, 2025. (JASON ARDAN \/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
\nNo Kings protest in Scranton<\/p>\n

Nationwide No Kings protests of the second Trump administration twice came to Scranton, drawing thousands to Courthouse Square.<\/p>\n

The first, in mid-June, welcomed protesters unhappy with the direction of the country. It was held the same day the president held a military-style parade in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here to stand up for America,\u201d said Jan Needham of Moosic, who said she believed it was critical that people speak up. \u201cWe\u2019re in trouble if we don\u2019t stand up to Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House attempted to paint the demonstrations as nothing more than paid protesters, an argument that landed flat with state Rep. Kyle Donahue, who while addressing the crowd asked, \u201cAre you paid?\u201d He was met with a resounding \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n

The second protest, in October, drew an even larger crowd with protesters expressing frustration and dismay with what they saw as an expansion of executive powers, reduction in health care, overzealous immigration enforcement and the deployment of federal troops in some cities, among other issues.<\/p>\n

\"RepublicanRepublican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., speaks before President Donald Trump arrives at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mt. Pocono, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Matt Rourke\/AP)
\nBuy, sell, trade<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan came under fire in his first months after The New York Times reported extensive stock trading by the freshman congressman from Dallas. In fact, the Times reported that he was one of the most prolific stock traders in the legislative body, making thousands of trades worth millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Bresnahan, who represents the 8th Congressional District, had campaigned on a promise to ban stock trading by members of Congress. He defended the trades, saying he has a financial adviser who makes trades without his prior knowledge. \u00a0On May 6, he introduced the Transparency in Representation through Uniform Stock Trading Ban Act, which would bar representatives and their spouses from trading stocks.<\/p>\n

Later in May, he offloaded up to $130,000 in stock in Centene, Elevance Health, UnitedHealth and CVS Health \u2014 four companies that manage nearly half of all Medicaid enrollees nationwide, NBC News reported. Roughly a week later he voted in favor of President Donald Trump\u2019s bill to cut Medicaid funding by nearly $1 trillion, the network said.<\/p>\n

In mid-December, Bresnahan announced that he has signed a petition aimed at fast-tracking a ban on stock trading by members of Congress.<\/p>\n

The freshman congressman said he was \u201chappy to sign onto\u201d the discharge petition that U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., filed Dec. 2. The measure, if passed, would prohibit members of Congress and, in some cases, their immediate families from buying or trading individual stocks while in office.<\/p>\n

\"LackawannaLackawanna County Commissioners, from left, Republican Chris Chermak and Democrats Bill Gaughan and Brenda Sacco. (Submitted)
\nDemocratic infighting<\/p>\n

The vacancy created by Matt McGloin\u2019s resignation from the county Board of Commissioners exposed deep schisms within the Lackawanna County Democratic Party. On the heels of the resignation, sitting Commissioner Bill Gaughan expressed his desire to have Dunmore Mayor Max Conway fill the vacancy. However, the county\u2019s Home Rule Charter lays out a process by which the county\u2019s Democratic Party leadership interviews and then submits three names to a panel of county judges who decide who will fill the post. One of those names was a former economic development director for the county, Brenda Sacco. Sacco was let go from her position when Gaughan and McGloin took office.<\/p>\n

Gaughan challenged the Home Rule Charter vacancy rules, arguing that a 1908 state Supreme Court ruling trumped the charter. What followed was a series of lawsuits and challenges until finally in October, the state Supreme Court ruled that Sacco was to be seated on the board until the results of a special election in November were certified.<\/p>\n

The maneuvering created bad blood that did not abate after Sacco became commissioner and formed a de facto bipartisan majority with Republican Commissioner Chris Chermak. Together they ousted Gaughan from his position as chairman of the board of commissioners, voting during an unusual and acrimonious late-October reorganization meeting to make Sacco chair and Chermak vice chair of the three-member board.<\/p>\n

The matter was ultimately resolved when Democrat Thom Welby won the special election to fill the remainder of McGloin\u2019s term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McGloin resigns from county seat Matt McGloin, the former standout quarterback at West Scranton High School and later…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[836,201,182,883,3296,139,28,50,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-69633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-election","9":"tag-lackawanna-county","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-local-politics","12":"tag-national-politics","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-scranton","17":"tag-scranton-headlines","18":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69633","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=69633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}