A left-leaning Pennsylvania nonprofit is launching a ballot initiative effort aimed at curbing conflicts of interest for local officials in two counties accustomed to political scandals.
Action Together NEPA says it will begin collecting voter signatures in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna and Luzerne counties on Tuesday with the goal of securing enough to force a November vote on whether to amend the counties’ charters to expressly ban local officials from insider trading and require elected officials to disclose more details about their personal finances. It also aims to compel the counties’ governments to produce an annual ethics report to “encourage transparency” for elected county officials.
The effort does not seek to outrightly ban stock trading by local officials, with signature drive organizers concluding such a prohibition would require state law changes.
Organizers said the initiative is in part inspired by NOTUS’ Capitol Gains reporting project, which detailed the personal financial habits of the two counties’ congressional representatives, including Sens. John Fetterman (D) and Dave McCormick (R), and Republican Reps. Rob Bresnahan and Dan Meuser.
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County residents are “far too familiar with corruption in general, and we know corruption inside and out,” Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, executive director of Action Together NEPA, told NOTUS. “This raises the bar locally … we’re optimistic we are going to find people overwhelmingly support this measure.”
J.J. Abbott, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Accountability Fund, which is helping fund the ballot initiative effort, added that the effort is “about sending a message to elected officials at every level that people are pissed about this and want action, including improving disclosure and prohibitions at other levels of government.”
Abbott estimates that the group will need to collect about 11,650 signatures in Luzerne County and about 8,900 signatures in Lackawanna County to secure a vote in November.
At the federal level, NOTUS has revealed that Fetterman and Meuser have in recent months violated the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act’s disclosure provisions by failing to properly report personal stock trades.
Bresnahan — who kept his ownership of a private helicopter quiet and was one of Congress’ most active stock traders during 2025 — has stopped trading stocks following public scrutiny. McCormick is one of Congress’ wealthiest members and a frequent stock trader.
Polling over the last few years has shown overwhelming public support — among conservatives, moderates and liberals — for banning members of Congress and other federal officials from trading individual stocks, citing insider trading, conflict of interest and public transparency concerns.
And while both the House and Senate have passed congressional stock-ban bills out of committee during the past year, neither chamber has scheduled a full vote on their respective measures.
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