Petitioners seeking to repeal Luzerne County's anti-discrimination ordinance or put it to a referendum submitted over 15,000 signatures on Monday, organizer Walter Griffith said.
That surpassed the 11,615 signatures required by the county’s home rule charter to give county council the choice to repeal the ordinance or put it up for a referendum next year.
The Clerk of County Council now has 20 days to review the signatures and determine how many are valid, Griffith said. If the petition is validated, county council will have 30 days to “consider repealing the ordinance on their own,” he said, or it will be put to a referendum during the 2027 primary.
But for Griffith and those who supported the effort, Monday's submission represents a victory achieved in a short space of time — and a major step forward for their cause.
"We only had 45 days to get these signatures, and 45 days to get 15,000 signatures is a huge task, as you well can appreciate," said Griffith, a Republican and former Luzerne County controller.
"We had people that were just doing it because they love their county, they love their government, and they want to make sure that this type of ordinance doesn't go through. So they circulated it themselves and gave of their time and got paid nothing, other than satisfaction," he added.
It's also the latest development in a story that has gripped Luzerne County in recent months and inflamed political divisions during an already tense midterm election year.
Luzerne County Council member Joanna Brynn Smith, a Democrat, said last week she normally would advocate for almost anything to appear on a ballot for county residents to vote.
But the anti-discrimination ordinance she introduced in January and voted to pass in June is, for her, the exception.
“When the majority is allowed to decide … whether or not the minority has equal rights it is only more divisive and bad things have only come from it,” she said. “I don’t want that for Luzerne County.”
Griffith sees it differently, and rejected the idea that the petitioners are hateful or pro-discrimination. "They're anti-ordinance that is government overreach," he said.
“The people of Luzerne County will speak loud and clear, we want this ordinance repealed immediately, or it will be placed on the ballot for the people to repeal it,” he said in a statement prior to turning in the petition.
“(This) has never been done in the 14 years since the start of Home Rule Government, but today we made history for the citizens of our county,” he said of the petition drive.
Questions and controversy surround ordinance
For months, Brynn Smith and other members of council have tried to address what they see as misconceptions and misinformation about the ordinance itself.
As petitioners continued to gather signatures last week, Brynn Smith expressed her belief that if Luzerne County had adopted an anti-discrimination ordinance 10 years ago, it would not have been met with the same resistance.
“I think that we have grown into a political climate that is incredibly divisive, but I think that is in huge part because of how much harder life has become,” she said. “When life is more and more difficult, people become more insular.”
The countywide non-discrimination ordinance extends discrimination protections to classes not included under statewide and federal law — including protections from discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, and physical or mental disability.
A companion ordinance, which was advanced by the county council in July, creates a human relations commission to hear potential cases and rule on whether discrimination occurred, without the need to go to the state’s commission. Brynn Smith said a public hearing for that legislation has not yet been set.
As of June 2026, 82 local and county governments have adopted their own form of non-discrimination ordinances. According to data from the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, that includes 74 municipalities and eight of the state’s 67 counties.
Liz Bradbury is chair of the Lehigh County Human Relations Commission. Lehigh County adopted a non-discrimination ordinance in 2024, and since then Bradbury has helped several counties, including Luzerne, create their own.
She says one of the main benefits of a county ordinance is efficiency in handling complaints. While the state has its own human relations commission and discrimination protections, Bradbury says they have a backlog of around 1,700 cases.
“The state has fallen down in terms of its ability to resolve complaints in a quick and fair way,” she said. “It’s tough on both the complainant and respondent because during all that time…(they’re) trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do.”
Opposition concerns include undocumented immigrants, transgender protections
At a press conference at the end of July, county council members and Bradbury took questions from the public about the ordinance.
Brynn Smith called the meeting to address what she believed was misinformation being spread to encourage people to sign Griffith’s petition.
She said one issue that has been brought up consistently is undocumented or illegal immigrants. She says she has gotten questions about whether including protections from discrimination based on someone’s citizenship status means a person in the United States without legal status would be protected from housing or employment discrimination.
She says that’s not true, and it’s important to distinguish between being a citizen and having legal status.
“If you are allowed to work in the United States, you are allowed to live in the United States,” she said. “So, if a landlord asks, and you can show that you can work in the United States, even though you're not a citizen, you're still here legally.”
She stressed that, in the example of a landlord and tenant, no landlord would be forced to break the law or rent to someone who does not have legal, permanent resident status.
“‘Citizen’ is a very specific thing; it has a very specific definition,” she said. “And there are many other statuses that people can have that make them legal to be in the United States for a significant amount of time.”
Bradbury noted that state and federal law also prohibits discrimination based on citizenship status.
“I think it’s much more likely to frighten people to say, ‘oh, this is going to make you hire all these illegal aliens.’ Well, you know, there’s no (local) law that somebody could pass that would allow you to break the law,” she said. “Clearly it’s absolutely against the law in the United States to hire somebody who is not authorized to work, and I think any elected official would know that, past or present.
Griffith has also expressed issues with the ordinance’s inclusion of gender identity as a protected class. He has stated that many people signing his petition are “not happy about the trans issue,” referring to protections for transgender individuals.
Brynn Smith said she has heard a lot of talk about how the ordinance will force schools to let boys use girl’s bathrooms. She says that is not true and the issue itself has been overblown.
“That’s not at all in the ordinance,” she said.
She said Pennsylvania state law has already ruled on this and requires schools to provide separate facilities for any child, transgender or not, to use if they are uncomfortable using the main girl’s or boy’s bathrooms.
Griffith has also said the ordinance opens up Luzerne County to increased litigation and cost because adding protected classes allows more people to claim they have been discriminated against.
Bradbury stresses that the Human Relations Commission that would hear cases of discrimination in the county would be entirely made up of volunteers. Luzerne County has proposed a $1,500 budget for the commission, but she said Lehigh County’s operates with a $500 budget.
And, complaints brought before the Human Relations Commission are not lawsuits. The ordinance lays out a process of review by the commission, informal mediation and a public hearing if necessary to determine whether discrimination took place.
Luzerne County’s ordinance states that in “egregious instances” after mediation and other remedies have failed, a respondent may receive a fine of no more than $500.
In all cases, Bradbury says the burden of proof is on the complainant. Since 2024, Bradbury said the Lehigh County Commission has heard 16 complaints. They found discrimination in two of them and ruled in favor of the complainant. Two others went in favor of the respondent part, while the remaining 12 were not part of the county’s jurisdiction.
Pittston has had its own non-discrimination ordinance since 2013. Their law also included protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Mayor Mike Lombardo was not serving as mayor at the time, but said he has not had any issues with it in the past nine years he has been back in office.
“In 100% transparency and honesty, we have had no issues,” he said. “I think we've created an environment that we don't really worry about that.”
Bradbury says passing a non-discrimination ordinance can have that effect.
“I like to talk about an anti-discrimination law as a stop sign that defines discrimination and tells people to stop,” she said. “When you have a stop sign in your community, you don’t have to have a police officer standing next to it saying, ‘no, no, you really have to stop.’”
Griffith: 'We have more important things to worry about'
Griffith on Monday questioned why Bradbury was brought in to answer questions during a recent public forum on the ordinance.
"That to me says volumes about our county council," he said. "They had to have somebody from outside the county come in and do that for them. That says volumes that these people had no idea what they're voting for."
He reiterated that those who oppose the ordinance are concerned about government overreach and potential litigation from people who argue their rights are violated.
"What the people are upset with is we have more important things in this county to worry about," Griffith said.
"This stuff is not, you know, men going in women's bathrooms — [that] is something that's already allowed in the state discrimination laws, to a point. So this has nothing to do with that," Griffith said.
"It has everything to do with the fact that they're they're pushing an ordinance that adds protected classes to an already existing law that the people of this county don't feel is necessary," he said. "And number two, it is going to cost us a lot of money in litigation. And number three, the Human Relations Commission is a violation of constitutional rights. That's what it's about. Has nothing to do with hatred or bigotry."
Does he expect a council that previously voted 7-4 in favor of the ordinance to reverse course now?
"Well, it was it was seven to four, but of those seven people, four of them are up for re-election next year," he said.
"I'm hoping now that they know that the people aren't happy with what they voted for, that they'll do the right thing and repeal it."
And if they don't?
"The messenger is right on target," Griffith said of the petitioners.
"The messenger says that we don't like this type of government where we shove stuff down people's throats without any say, and we're going to use our government, our right [to] a referendum, to stop them," he said.
ORDINANCE TIMELINE:
KEY STEPS
● PASSAGE: Luzerne County Council passes the 23-page ordinance by a 7-4 vote on June 9; it is set to take effect in 90 days from that time.
● PETITION DRIVE: Soon after, ex-Luzerne County Controller Walter Griffith announces he and others are looking to launch a petition drive to either repeal the ordinance or give it a ballot referendum during the next possible election. They have 60 days from passage to gather 11,650 signatures — 10% of county votes cast in the 2022 gubernatorial election.
● FIRST HURDLE: On June 23, Griffith and a group of petitioners hand in 1,899 signatures, exceeding the 1,161 valid signatures needed to advance the petition to the next stage.
● GRIFFITH SAYS BENCHMARK EXCEEDED: The petitioners had 45 days — until Saturday, Aug. 8 — to collect the full 10%, but Griffith announces days ahead of the deadline that they have gathered 14,000 signatures, with more to come.
● SIGNATURES SUBMITTED: Griffith and supporters gather at the Clerk to County Councils Office at the County Courthouse on Monday, Aug 10 to file their petition, which included 15,395 signatures.
● NEXT STEPS: According to Griffith, the clerk has 20 days to rule on the validity of the signatures. If the petition is validated, county council will have 30 days to “consider repealing the ordinance on their own,” Griffith says, "or it will be placed on the ballot for the people to repeal it" in the 2027 primary election.
