| Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Rob Bresnahan is making headlines for trading hundreds of stocks in office despite campaigning on a pledge to ban congressional stock trading.
New reporting from the Post-Gazette today once again finds that Bresnahan is “the most prolific trader in the [Pennsylvania] delegation” and “the fourth-most active in the entire Congress.” And The Keystone reports that Pennsylvanians are taking notice, with one NEPA constituent calling Bresnahan’s trading “repulsive” and “offensive.”
Read the latest coverage for yourself:
- The most prolific trader in the delegation — and the fourth-most active in the entire Congress, according to Capitol Trades — is U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a Luzerne County Republican who campaigned last year on supporting a congressional stock trading ban.
- He’s disclosed 636 trades valued between about $2.3 million and $13.2 million, according to the disclosures that require values of income and assets to be described only in broad ranges.
- He also rebuffed the idea of telling his investment managers to stop trading. “And then do what with it?” he told WVIA. “Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”
- One of the trades that drew outsized attention was his sale of $1,000 to $15,000 worth of stock in Centene on May 15. The company is a leading Medicaid plan provider whose stock proceeded to plummet after President Donald Trump signed his signature legislation that cut Medicaid in July.
- The stock has dropped 35% since Mr. Bresnahan sold it, the Post-Gazette’s review found. Stock in another major Medicaid plan provider, Elevance Health, that he sold $15,000 to $50,000 of on the same day has also dropped by more than 12%. The congressman’s office did not respond to questions from the Post-Gazette.
- Doug Kerr, a retiree living in the Wilkes Barre area, finds Bresnahan’s stock trading “repulvise” and “offensive” given how many are struggling in the district.
- Over 21,000 of Bresnahan’s constituents are expected to lose their Medicaid coverage, while another 11,000 are going to lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, when Trump’s budget cuts go into effect.
- ”I think for our area in particular, as economic challenges exist for a majority of our population, the absolute grift of using stock trading to advance himself is – I find – repulsive. I think it’s offensive,” Kerr said in an interview.
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