Luzerne County board member questions prediction-bet referendum

A Luzerne County election board member is questioning whether a voter referendum to amend the county home rule charter can legally be enforced. The measure would bar county elected officials and employees from making individual stock trades or prediction-market bets based on nonpublic information obtained through county service, and it would require annual reporting on ethics complaints and stock trades involving county, state and federal elected officials representing the county.

The board voted 4-1 last Wednesday to put the question on the Nov. 3 general-election ballot, with Rick Morelli dissenting. According to the Citizens Voice, Morelli followed up Monday with an email to election bureau Solicitor Gene Molino and asked for a legal opinion, including whether county officials would have authority to seek or review the financial trading activity of members of Congress who distribute funds to the county.

Molino said he would provide an opinion to board members and said the board’s actions on the ballot questions were legal and appropriate. He also said he did not know how county government would compile a report on stock trades involving state and federal elected officials, and said it was not the board’s role to decide how a yes vote would be carried out.

The ballot question was submitted by Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, a Fairview Township resident and executive director of Action Together NEPA, with a petition that carried more than 23,000 signatures. County rules required at least 11,615 valid signatures from registered voters, a threshold equal to 10% of county votes cast in the 2022 gubernatorial election.

Board members discussed trimming the length of the submitted wording, but the only change they made was to correct a misspelled word. Hoffman-Mirilovich said litigation would be considered if the board made substantive changes, while attorney Tim Ford said the wording would allow county council to "formulate a policy" to implement the referendum in the county Accountability, Conduct and Ethics Code.

Pennsylvania’s referendum handbook says referenda are approved by majority vote and are treated as special elections subject to November election rules, but it also says there is no single state law governing referenda and that most requirements come from the specific authorizing law. It warns that a referendum can be invalid if a law requires a particular date or election type and it is held at another time. The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission, meanwhile, provides advisory opinions to public officials and employees about their duties under the Ethics Act.