Householder had plan B if opponents blocked HB6
Legislation would have been broken up
Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder wasn’t going to wait for Ohio voters to decide if they wanted to pay a fee on their electric bills to bail out two struggling nuclear plants.
Instead, Householder had a backup plan if opponents of the $1.3 billion nuclear bailout collected enough signatures to make the November 2020 ballot − despite a nasty, dark moneyfueled campaign to hinder them.
The Republican legislative leader planned to divide House Bill 6 into pieces and pass each individually, making it more difficult for opponents to challenge any one aspect, according to testimony in Householder’s federal trial last week in Cincinnati.
The strategy underscored Householder’s commitment to securing a bailout for Akron-based Firstenergy Solutions’ plants, even though the plan was deeply unpopular with Ohio voters.
“Polling shows the more we explain it, the worse it does,” Householder’s political strategist Jeff Longstreth told the speaker in June 2019.
And former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges outlined the stakes in a call secretly recorded by the FBI: “If it makes the ballot, we’re dead.”
Householder and Borges are accused of participating in a pay-to-play scheme to trade nearly $61 million in bribes from Firstenergy and its subsidiaries in exchange for Householder’s return to power and the bailout for Ohio’s nuclear plants. Both have pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. Their federal trial is entering week five.
Ultimately, Householder never needed plan B.
A $40 million campaign, funded by Firstenergy and its allies through secretive nonprofits, quashed House Bill 6’s opposition with anti-china attack ads, private investigators and money offers for signature collectors to leave Ohio. The anti-bailout effort failed in October 2019, falling short of the signatures needed to make the ballot.
Shortly after, Householder pushed a plan that would have changed Ohio’s term-limit requirement for lawmakers and given him up to 16 more years in charge of the Ohio House. Once again, he turned to Firstenergy to foot the bill.
And the nuclear plants’ owner looked to sell the company, which went from hemorrhaging money to guaranteed profits thanks to Householder’s House Bill 6. Executive chairman John Kiani aimed to make $100 million from the sale.
Why did Householder champion House Bill 6?
Federal prosecutors say Householder was laser-focused on passing the nuclear bailout in House Bill 6 because Firstenergy bribed him. In July 2021, Firstenergy admitted that it used money to influence Householder and another public official, former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, and agreed to pay a $230 million penalty.
Randazzo has not been charged with any crimes and has said he did nothing wrong.
House Bill 6 was Householder’s No. 1 priority, witnesses testified. The Republican legislative leader blocked a bill to legalize sports betting because its sponsor voted against the nuclear bailout. The political calculus was simple, lobbyist Neil Clark explained in a secretly recorded conversation: “If you’re not loyal, you’re disloyal.”
But Householder says he passed House Bill 6 to prevent the closure of the two nuclear plants, which would have devastated the local economy. He also wanted to limit Ohio’s reliance on energy generated in other states.
“Larry didn’t support House Bill 6 as part of some corrupt agreement with executives at Firstenergy,” Householder’s attorney Steven Bradley said during opening statements. “There were any number of reasons that he believed House Bill 6 was legislation that benefited all of Ohioans, and that’s the only reason that he supported and advanced House Bill 6.”
But protecting House Bill 6 was also about preserving the power of the Gopcontrolled Ohio Legislature to set a course for the state, according to conversations held at the exclusive Aubergine Private Dining Club in Grandview, near Columbus. Undercover FBI agents recorded the dinner while posing as commercial real estate investors lobbying to legalize sports betting.
“It is so important that they (House Bill 6 opponents) are not successful because when the Legislature votes on something, it needs to stay law,” Householder said in the recording.
Ohio has a mechanism that allows voters to reject laws if they don’t like what their representatives approved. Called a referendum, the process was last used successfully to block the antiunion Senate Bill 5 in 2011.
But the referendum effort to block House Bill 6 failed, largely because of unprecedented opposition bankrolled by Firstenergy Solutions. At the time, the nuclear plants’ owner was in bankruptcy. But that didn’t stop executives from spending extravagantly.
Executives from Firstenergy and Firstenergy Solutions aggressively pushed for the nuclear bailout. When the bill passed the Ohio Legislature, then-firstenergy CEO Chuck Jones shared a photoshopped image of Mount Rushmore with the bill’s backers faces. The caption read: “HB 6 F*** ANYBODY WHO AINT US.”
“We have more money than they think,” then-firstenergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes wrote in a text message.
“Who would ever assume a bankrupt company is willing to spend $15M. What a joke? lol.”
After the effort to block House Bill 6 failed, the company’s executive chairman John Kiani planned to sell the nuclear plants − pocketing $100 million for himself and offering another $2 million to Cespedes for damage control, expecting that the sale would be deeply unpopular.
‘He was loyal to us’
Fresh off a victory on House Bill 6, Householder shifted his focus to a new plan that would have allowed him to remain speaker for up to 16 more years. Once again, it was bankrolled by Firstenergy and its allies through a dark money entity.
But the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, and the campaign ultimately fizzled.
Firstenergy gave $2 million to the cause even as Jones said that Householder was an “expensive friend.” Firstenergy Solutions executives were prepared to give $3 million to Householder’s effort in exchange for another four years of subsidies for the nuclear power plants, Cespedes testified.
“We had a lot of confidence in Speaker Householder,” Cespedes said. “He was loyal to us.”
USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau reporters Jessie Balmert and Laura Bischoff have been following the House Bill 6 scandal since the story broke. They will continue to follow developments and the trial. Follow them on Twitter at @lbischoff and @jbalmert for updates.
The USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau serves the Akron Beacon Journal, the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer and other network news organizations across the state.
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