The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
House Bill 6 cases officially dismissed
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts’ effort to overturn a bill that subsidizes the state’s two plants is over.
With the final court formalities completed, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts’ effort to overturn a bill that subsidizes the state’s two nuclear power plants is over.
Cases in front of federal appellate court and Ohio Supreme Court judges have officially been dismissed, following Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts’ voluntary withdrawal from the proceedings.
The group was attempting to keep alive a petition signature effort to put a statewide question on the November 2020 ballot asking voters whether to overturn House Bill 6.
House Bill 6 was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine last July and went into effect in October. Charges paid by residential, commercial and industrial customers will generate an estimated $170 million a year.
Of that total, $150 million annually will go to the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants. The other $20 million is earmarked to support six solar energy projects in Ohio. The nuclear plants will receive money between 2021 and 2027.
The former FirstEnergy Solutions, which is emerging from bankruptcy as Energy Harbor, threatened to close the plants without receiving subsidies.
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts announced Oct. 21 — the deadline to submit petitions to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office — that it did not have enough signatures. The group was seeking a court ruling to give them an additional 38 days to circulate petitions.
Petitioners in Ohio have 90 days from the governor’s signing of a bill to submit the required number of valid signatures to put a referendum on the statewide ballot.
Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts could not begin circulating petitions until it received approval of the proposed ballot language summary from the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office. The group’s initial attempt was rejected, but a second attempt was approved.
The group argued in U.S. District Court for the Southern District Ohio that the 38 days taken by the ballot language approval process is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech.
U.S. Southern Ohio District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. denied the group’s effort, but referred questions related to the petition process to the Ohio Supreme Court.
The federal judge wrote in an order issued late Oct. 23 that the window to circulate petitions is only prescribed in the Ohio, not federal, constitution. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed on Dec. 24 to hear arguments on that case.
Meanwhile, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts appealed Sargus’ ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The group on Jan. 21 filed a voluntary withdrawal from the case.
“We have moved to dismiss our suit in federal court, as we could see no clear path to a successful petition drive,” Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts spokesperson Gene Pierce said in a Jan. 22 email.
“The committee will now stand down.”
The federal appellate court granted the dismissal on Jan. 22.
A joint application for dismissal was filed in the Ohio Supreme Court Case Jan. 30, which the court granted the following day.
“With the federal case dismissed, any proceedings in this court cannot answer a ‘question of Ohio law that may be determinative’ of the federal case,” the application for dismissal stated.