COLUMBUS — The first campaign finance deadline since passage of the nuclear plant bailout law has come and gone, and Ohioans still have little idea whose deep pockets poured millions into the fight.
Protect Ohio Clean Energy Jobs, the political action committee for the pro-House Bill 6 group Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance, filed its annual report by Friday's deadline indicating that it had raised $90,000 from a single source, 17 Consulting Group LLC.
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, the group behind the failed petition effort to put the law on the Nov. 3 ballot, did not file an annual report, although Maggie Sheehan, spokesman for Secretary of State Frank LaRose, said it was required to do so.
Gene Pierce, the group's spokesman, did not return messages on Monday. Failure to file could carry daily fines of $100.
“...since it has already come to our attention that this campaign committee has not properly filed, we will be reaching out to give them the opportunity to submit a report,” Ms. Sheehan said. “If there comes a determination that the committee will not be submitting the appropriate report, our office will refer the campaign committee to the Ohio Elections Commission for their consideration.”
The group also had created an LLC, so even if it had met the deadline Ohioans were unlikely to know specifically which individuals, corporations, and organizations poured money into the referendum effort.
As expected, another nebulous group calling itself Ohioans for Energy Security filed no reports despite having purchased millions in TV and radio ads and direct mailings to claim the Chinese were behind the effort to undermine Ohio's energy security.
Unlike the referendum group, Energy Security never registered as a PAC with the secretary of state's office, which would have triggered subsequent campaign filings.
“We were not required to (file),” spokesman Carlo Loparo said. “The group is an LLC, which has the right under the First Amendment to advocate for public policy positions.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford), who successfully pushed for passage of the law, reported receiving for his own campaign committee nearly $45,000 total from interests related to FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor and Perry plant east of Cleveland.
John Judge, FES’ president and CEO, and FirstEnergy PAC, the committee for the Akron-based corporation that spun off FES, each gave $13,292. Anthony Alexander, FirstEnergy Corp.'s former president, contributed $5,000, as the speaker's committee took in just over $1 million total during the second half of 2019.
Mr. Householder turned over $1 million to the House Republican Campaign Committee but still had nearly $1.3 million in cash left on hand. FirstEnergy PAC also contributed $19,939 more to the caucus campaign committee.
17 Consulting Group LLC, the purse behind Protect Ohio Clean Energy Jobs, was registered with the state in August by consultant Matt Borges, the former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. It is not required under Ohio law to reveal who is bankrolling it.
House Bill 6 went into effect in October. Beginning next year, it will surcharge electricity consumers on their monthly bills to fuel a $170 million annual fund — $150 million of which will be used to subsidize operation of the nuclear plants and $20 million of which will support utility-scale solar fields.
The law was the center of a fight waged in the legislature as FES, labor unions, and local elected and business officials urged passage of the law to save nuclear plants that together directly employ about 1,400 people. Environmental groups and competing energy interests, in turn, decried the bailout for plants that have struggled to compete economically.
The fight then shifted to the streets and TV airwaves as Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts launched its petition effort to subject the law to voter referendum and opposition groups launched a massive ad campaign and hired blockers to physically come between petition circulators and would-be signers.
“It is really infuriating,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Ohio. “Good disclosure is constitutional and was reaffirmed as both constitutional and a public good in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission...
“We need information to cast a ballot,” she said.”Here is someone who is in a position to spend money left and right, and we are not able to follow that money. Voters received advertisements and saw TV ads that they had no context for. Because those ads weren't connect to a person or specific corporation and were instead a buffer between FES and these ads, they end up being able to say things that are hurtful, xenophobic, and a little odd.”
In the end, the anti-bailout group came up short of the signatures needed to put the question on the ballot. On Friday, the Ohio Supreme Court, at the group's request, dismissed the last remaining piece of litigation trying to keep the referendum effort alive.
First Published February 3, 2020, 6:00 p.m.
