Election boards in Lackawanna, Luzerne counties to act on stock trade ban ballot questions

County election boards in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties will soon act on proposed Nov. 3 election ballot questions asking voters to ban county officials and employees from trading stocks based on insider information.

The Lackawanna County Board of Elections is scheduled to meet Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in the commissioners’ meeting room on the fifth floor of the Government Center, elections director Beth Hopkins said.

The Luzerne County Board of Elections and Registration will meet Aug. 19 at 6 p.m. in the county council meeting room on the first floor of the County Courthouse, board solicitor Gene Molino said.

'A groundswell of support'

Action Together NEPA submitted 17,318 signatures on petitions in Lackawanna County to get the question on the ballot there, the group said. They only needed 8,900, Hopkins said.

In Luzerne County, the group submitted 23,323, more than twice as many as the required 11,650, said Jessica Brittain, the group’s communications director.

Combined, more than 40,641 people signed the petitions, about 11.4% of all registered voters in the two counties as of Monday.

“We are excited that we had this tremendous grassroots effort and just the voter enthusiasm that has come through in this,” said Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, 42, Action Together’s executive director and a Fairview Township resident, whose name appears as the lead filer on the Luzerne petitions. “It is exciting to see that there is just such a groundswell of support, and it shows how important this issue is to people of all political affiliations.”

Jennifer Partyka, 54, a registered nurse from Dalton and the lead filer on the Lackawanna petitions, said she’s “super-duper proud” of all the support for the ballot initiative.

“I feel like it's common sense, right?” Partyka said. “We kind of all feel this ... in a lot of ways in Northeastern Pennsylvania right now because of so many different experiences that we have, that we're collectively experiencing with that top versus bottom mentality. I think that it's time we all like kind of start expecting public service from our public servants, right?”

The Luzerne ballot question

In Luzerne, the question asks voters if they favor amendments to the home rule charter that would forbid county officials and employees from trading stocks or betting in prediction markets “based on nonpublic information obtained in the course of their official county service.” Other proposed amendments would:

• Require the county manager to propose amendments to the county accountability, conduct and ethics code “consistent with the provisions, spirit and purpose” of the charter and the voter amendment. The manager would have to propose the code amendents within four months after the charter amendment goes into effect.
• Require the county Accountability, Conduct and Ethics Commission to produce an annual report on all ethics complaints. Because compiling the complaints, the report would have to summarize “individual stock trades by volume made by county, state and federal elected officials who represent citizens of the county based on publicly available information.” It would also recommend ethics code changes “to regulate emerging unethical practices or ones that are not sufficiently regulated.

Molino said the county Bureau of Elections has already accepted the petitions so the elections board won’t challenge their validity, though someone else can.

“The board has to frame and approve the question to be placed on the ballot,” Molino said.

The Lackawanna ballot question

In Lackawanna County, the question asks if the home rule charter should be amended to forbid “the exempt service and county employees” from trading stocks or betting in prediction markets “based on nonpublic information obtained in the course of their official county service.”

The charter defines “exempt service” employees as elected officers, members of county boards, authorities, commissions and committees, the county chief of staff and top deputies to commissioners, temporary or seasonal employees, civil service employees and employees who work for judges.

Unlike in Luzerne, the Lackawanna county solicitor would have to produce an annual report on ethics complaints, stock trades and emerging unethical practices.

Election board solicitor Anthony Lomma said he’s reviewing the legality of placing the question on the ballot. Lomma said he’s concerned the requirement to report individual stock trades by federal officials who represent county residents could include the president and vice president of the United States and state representatives and senators.

That may be too broad a list for a county home rule charter, he said.

'Shocked' at popularity of proposal

Hoffman-Mirilovich said she doesn’t think the amendments are problematic.

“We've gone through all of the legal, like the different language,” she said. “We’ve gone through this fully, so we don't have any concerns for that ... This has been vetted through multiple sources.”

Brittain said the group plans to mount a strong campaign to enact both amendments and noted the 40,000 signatures.

“I mean we were expecting it to be popular. Those numbers shocked us,” Brittain said. “So, I think I am feeling cautiously optimistic, but these numbers that we've seen so far and that broad base of support in every part of both counties from voters of all affiliations make us feel pretty good going into that (vote yes) effort.”