A grassroots campaign with the support of tens of thousands of residents living in the former coal regions of Pennsylvania may serve as a roadblock for Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s (R-Luzerne) reelection chances come November.
Over 40,000 residents from Lackawanna and Luzerne counties signed petitions to place a referendum banning insider trading on the ballot in their respective counties. The amendments would ban county officials from using insider information to make money through stock trades or prediction markets and require more transparency on their financial activities.
Meet the candidates: Paige Cognetti and Rob Bresnahan face off in Pa-08
They would not directly affect Bresnahan, who is a member of the US House. But they are putting his record under the spotlight because he initially campaigned against Congressional stock trading only to become one of Congress’ most prolific stock traders.
In fact, Bresnahan’s record played a part in getting the referendum off the ground.
“I think what is the most disappointing is he had said that he’d stop trading stocks, and while we were collecting these signatures, he was trading more stocks,” Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, the Executive Director with Action Together NEPA, said in an interview. “It came out that in the month we were collecting these signatures, he made another $400,000 after months of saying that he wouldn’t trade any more stock.”
Action Together NEPA is a progressive organization based in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and they were able to collect more than double the amount of signatures required to place the referendums on the ballot in the two counties.
“ I think what is most exciting is that we had over 40,000 people across the two counties sign these petitions, and they’re from all walks of life, all political affiliations,” Hoffman-Mirilovich said
“People are saying ‘enough’s enough.’ They are flat out tired of their elected officials profiting on them, and it’s just a widespread spectrum of folks that are involved and excited and were willing to sign for this, these referendums,” she added.
“ There’s a level of transparency in this to update and make it publicly and easily available for constituents here in Luzerne County and Lackawanna to find out who of their elected representatives are trading stocks and how much they’re trading.”
Bresnahan is running for reelection against Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti (D), and since taking office, he has made 644 trades valued at $8.47 million.
According to Hoffman-Mirilovich, it’s not just Bresnahan who has been trading. It also includes Sens. John Fetterman (D) and Dave McCormick (R) and Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Luzerne), who have all traded stocks while serving in Congress.
Last year, Bresnahan sold $150,000 in stocks from Medicaid providers prior to voting for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut Medicaid by $1 trillion.
Over 21,000 of Bresnahan’s constituents will lose their healthcare coverage when these cuts go into effect after the midterm elections.
