The passage of House Bill 6 in 2019 continues to reverberate across Ohio, even as lawmakers continue to repeal aspects of it.
Last week, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 15, which aims to make energy more affordable in the Buckeye State and repeal parts of House Bill 6, including controversial subsidies.
However, a recent HBO documentary is helping to keep the fallout from the bill’s passage alive. “The Dark Money Game” highlights the $60 million dark money bribery scheme that has been called “one of the largest public corruption conspiracies in Ohio history.”
“The FBI showed everyone how dark money directly led to one of the largest public corruption conspiracies in Ohio history, yet nearly 5 years later we still haven’t passed a single law that would prevent it from happening again,” Ohio Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, D-Westlake, said in a release. “Our legislation is simple: shine a light, follow the money, and let voters see who’s trying to influence them. Ohioans deserve to have transparency and accountability from their elected leaders.”
DeWine signed HB 6 in 2019. It was sold as a ratepayer-funded bailout of two nuclear power plants after Akron-based FirstEnergy Solutions filed for bankruptcy in March 2018 and announced plans to close Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor near Toledo and Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry.
Federal prosecutors eventually charged former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and others. The feds said the former House speaker and his enterprise conspired to violate racketeering laws and received millions of dollars in bribes.
A federal appeals court recently upheld Householder’s conviction.
Ohio Democrats quickly point out that Buckeye State lawmakers have not passed campaign finance or ethics reform that might help avert future public corruption scandals.
They have proposed a series of bills, including House Bill 250, the Ohio Anti-Corruption Act. The lawmakers said the measure would close loopholes that allow 501(c)(4)s and limited liability companies to “become vehicles for big money special interests to hide their spending.”
As proposed, the legislation would require corporations and LLCs to disclose contributions intended to influence elections. However, Ohio legislators might not be able to make such a change.
“That’s an issue that’s outside of the Statehouse, that’s controlled by federal law,” Statehouse News Bureau quoted House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, as saying.
Ohio Democrats also proposed a measure that they said would bar the harassment of Ohioans circulating petitions and another that ostensibly aims to bar “pay-to-play” in public contracting and public financing.
“Ohioans deserve a trustworthy government and lawmakers who serve the public interest,” Ohio Rep. Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, said in a release. “Since the HB 6 scandal, the legislature has failed to rebuild that trust. We need transparency around dark money and safeguards to prevent major donors from profiting off taxpayer funded contracts. These bills aim to restore integrity to the Statehouse—because we can’t wait any longer.”
In an op-ed published in The Columbus Dispatch, Rea S. Hederman Jr., vice president of policy and executive director of the Economic Research Center at The Buckeye Institute, said a more competitive energy market is the antidote and that “policymakers should promote market competition and reduce regulatory red-tape.”
“The infamous House Bill 6 debacle that saw an energy company pay millions of dollars to state politicians and regulators in exchange for public subsidies taught Ohio an embarrassing lesson,” Hederman wrote.
“To avoid repeating that painful mistake, policymakers must resist the temptation to subsidize politically preferred energy sources or providers,” Hederman added. “Such subsidies encourage corruption, manipulate markets, and distort corporate decision-making — all to the consumer’s detriment.”
