Ohio Democratic Party (ODP) Chairwoman Elizabeth Walters last week filed a preliminary injunction seeking assurance that Gov. Mike DeWine (R) will preserve all records pertaining to House Bill 6 as an ODP lawsuit goes forward.
The legislation, which DeWine signed into law in July 2019, created a $1.3 billion bailout for the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear-power plants operated by FirstEnergy Corp. Federal prosecutors have alleged that GOP former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and numerous other individuals, including erstwhile Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, participated in a $61 million bribery scheme to effect the subsidies.
FirstEnergy ended up being charged with a $230 million fine pertaining to the scandal. Householder was arrested in July 2020 and his fellow representatives soon voted unanimously to remove him as House Speaker. He nonetheless won re-election against four write-in candidates that November. Lawmakers reacted by removing him from office the following spring.
DeWine signed a repeal of the subsidy provisions in H.B. 6 in 2021 and was among those who publicly urged Householder to step down from public life. Now, the governor’s opponents are litigating to determine what level of knowledge or involvement he may have had in the scandal. The state Democratic Party filed its lawsuit in May alleging that DeWine breached Ohio public-records law by redacting his public schedule.
Walters asserts that DeWine’s office has failed to fulfill any of the records her party has submitted since ODP sued two months ago. Now, her organization is seeking assurance in the Court of Common Pleas in Franklin County that no records relevant to H.B. 6 are destroyed.
“Nothing we’re asking for is complicated: emails and texts between Mike DeWine, [Lt. Gov.] Jon Husted [R] and their staffs about H.B. 6, correspondence between the administration and the organizations and individuals connected to the scandal and a full, unredacted calendar from Mike DeWine accounting for how he was spending his taxpayer-funded time,” Walters said in a statement. These are questions we started asking in October, answers Ohio voters deserve.”
DeWine’s office has told the press that state Democrats are “trying to mislead Ohioans … regarding public records” and “have gone fishing in a pond with no water.”
Householder’s trial is set to begin next January.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Ohio Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Elizabeth Walters” by Elizabeth Walters. Background Photo “Larry Householder” by Larry Householder.
