Erik Arneson

Who is Erik Arneson?

Erik Arneson is a prominent political staffer in Pennsylvania, serving as Chief of Staff for former Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Chip Brightbill and as Communications and Policy Director for current Majority Leader Dominic F. Pileggi.

A graduate of Temple University, he studied radio, television, and film and worked at WRTI,the college's radio station. While in college, he developed a subscription-based play-by-mail fantasy professional wrestling league called the "Global Wrestling Federation." He then became a disc jockey at WJTL, a Lancaster-based Contemporary Christian radio station. In 1993, he became a reporter with the Lebanon Daily News. In 1996, he was hired by State Senator Chip Brightbill. The political newspaper The Insider said that he has "hitched his wagon to a rising star when Brightbill was a rank-and-file senator" as Brightbill rose to a leadership position within the Pennsylvania Senate. After Brightbill's defeat following the 2005 Pennsylvania General Assembly pay raise controversy, he began working for the new Majority Leader, Dominic F. Pileggi.

In 2003, he was named to the PoliticsPA "Sy Snyder's Power 50" list of politically influential personalities.