Our lawmakers show skewed sense of ethics
Maybe it’s unfair to criticize the Ohio General Assembly because it still hasn’t repealed anti-consumer House Bill 6. Maybe Statehouse deal-making has become so routinely rank that Ohio’s high-turnover legislature has lost its sense of smell.
House Bill 6, passed by the legislature in 2019 by razor-thin margins, requires Ohio electricity customers to bail out the Perry and Davis-besse nuclear power plants (once owned by Firstenergy Corp.) and two coal-burning power plants (one in Indiana).
Republican Gov. Mike Dewine signed HB 6. He’s now asking legislators to repeal it. But our Gop-run legislature doesn’t seem to hear our GOP governor (and not just on HB 6). Keep in mind, meanwhile: HB 6 would not have passed without Democratic votes.
In 1970, as part of what was called Crofters scandal, $22,500 in apparently legal campaign donations (say, $150,000 today) helped defeat most of that year’s statewide GOP ticket. Issue: The illegal loan of state money, via commercial paper, to shaky borrowers who were clients of campaign donors. Result: Ohioans elected a Democratic governor (John J. Gilligan); Democratic attorney general (William J. Brown); Democratic auditor (Joseph Ferguson); and a Democratic treasurer (Gertrude Donahey).
Four months ago, a federal grand jury indicted five people, including former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County’s Glenford. Allegedly, the defendants had spent more than $60 million in so-called “dark money” to get House Bill 6 passed and to stymie a statewide petition drive to make HB 6 a ballot issue so Ohioans could vote HB 6 up or down.
The purported $60 million dark money outlay would be 400 times larger than the (inflation-adjusted) $150,000 in donations that stoked the Crofters affair.
Two of the HB 6 federal defendants have pleaded guilty. The remaining three, including ex-speaker Householder, must be presumed innocent unless convicted.
The General Assembly’s response to July’s HB 6 indictments: essentially zilch, other than the House’s removal of Householder from the speakership. His replacement: Speaker Robert
Cupp, a Lima Republican. The House’s GOP caucus is also backing Cupp for the 2021-22 speakership.
In the 50 years since the Crofters scandal, other Statehouse scandals and controversies have surfaced. But whatever outrage those sordid affairs provoked among voters, they seem to provoke less and less concern among Ohio General Assembly members.
There are periodic Statehouse dustups over ethics. But often as not, those cases seem essentially about paperwork. In 2005, for example, Republican then-gov. Bob Taft self-reported (in effect, turned himself in) for failing to report gifts and golf outings valued at $5,682.
Taft pleaded no contest and was fined $4,000. True, everyone from a supply clerk in a state agency on up to the state’s governor is subject to Ohio’s laws. But the Taft case demonstrates a focus of Ohio’s ethics laws on paperwork rather than on conduct, as did the “honoraria” cases of the 1990s. (As an aside, it is impossible to believe a gift could influence Bob Taft’s official actions.)
If you’re an elected official who doesn’t report drinks and a meal somebody else paid for, pack your bags for Lucasville. But carry water inside the Statehouse for fat cats who want to squeeze Ohioans? Hey, that’s just politics.
Why is the General Assembly so indifferent (almost contemptibly indifferent) to the House Bill 6 indictments? One reason is most legislators have get-along, go-along personalities — boat-rockers aren’t the kinds of candidates caucuses recruit. (Ask GOP conservatives about that.)
Are there admirable General Assembly members? There sure are. But they’re soon gone because — yes, many people don’t want to hear it — termlimits retire them.
In the end, only pressure from voters will get the General Assembly to repeal HB 6. If you don’t want what amounts to a toll both on your electric meter, speak up. Or prepare to pay up.
Correction: Overriding a veto requires the votes of at least 60 Ohio House members (three-fifths). Last week’s column said an override required at least 66 votes (two-thirds). The Constitution does require at least 66 House votes to pass a bill in fewer than three days or make a bill take effect immediately rather than after the usual 90-day wait.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com