Yost, Dave a g

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1 25 2ND ON IMMIGR TPS BS, RUN GOV

SEE RAGA TEAM RED

MERRI OK

GOP ANOMALY?

ELSASS PR NASTY BOYS FIRSTENERGY PROPOSITION HOUSEHOLDER

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defectors?

an 10 25

President Donald Trump is now finding fewer support from Republican state attorneys general (AGs) over his controversial deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago, Illinois.

Newsweek reported Thursday that while Trump had 22 Republican AGs sign onto an amicus (meaning "friend of the court") brief in support of deploying the National Guard to Washington D.C. filed in September, a new amicus brief has just 18 signatures from his own party's top law enforcement officials. The D.C. amicus brief had the backing of AGs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia.

But according to Newsweek's Robert Alexander, the Illinois amicus brief is missing the signatures of AGs from North Dakota's Drew Wrigley, Ohio's Dave Yost and Virginia's Jason Miyares. Alexander wrote that the absence of their names may signal the "first visible crack" in what had typically been a "united GOP front" backing Trump's "expansive view of presidential power."

"While the two filings use nearly identical legal arguments, the smaller roster suggests that some Republican legal officers are unwilling to endorse federal troops entering a state that didn’t request them, exposing quiet unease within the party’s legal ranks over the limits of Trump’s authority," he wrote.

Typically, a president can only deploy National Guard troops to a state if that state's governor explicitly requests it. 10 U.S.C. §12406 gives the president the power to do so in order to "execute the laws of the United States." But since Illinois Governor JB Pritzker never made such a request of Trump, that presidential power does not apply. Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee was not challenged despite opposition from Mayor Paul Young (D), as Governor Bill Lee (R) made the request.

IFrame Content

The governor's legal team made a similar argument before a federal court earlier this week after Trump sent the Texas National Guard to Chicago, and said in September that he planned to take the administration to court in the event Trump sent the guard to the Prairie State against his wishes.

The Department of Justice is expected to soon file its response to Illinois' challenge. And regardless of how U.S. District Judge April Perry (appointed by former President Joe Biden) rules in the case, either side could appeal the decision to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Click here to read Newsweek's full report.

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prosecutor for firstenergy but works for dewine?

feed

ohio cap jrnl

...

When asked by OCJ/WEWS why some of the alleged major players haven’t been subpoenaed yet, Entin responded with options.

“It could mean that the government believes that it has a strong enough case to go forward against the defendants,” he said.

Another possibility is that the government doesn’t have a strong enough case, actors are cooperating and giving information without an order or prosecutors are still investigating specific individuals.

OCJ/WEWS asked Gov. Mike DeWine if he had been subpoenaed in the scandal, and if he hadn’t, if he was anticipating being subpoenaed. He responded “no” to both questions.

Attorney General Dave Yost, as well as a few former lawmakers, have been subpoenaed. The new documents revealed that more than 30 companies had as well.

>Subpoenaed companies</h4>

Records from the following companies were subpoenaed: Allen, Stovall, Neuman, Fisher & Ashton LLP; Apple, Inc.; Amalgamated Bank; Arena Online; AT&T; Centric Bank; CGI Investigation, LLC; Charles Schwab; Crossroads Media; Discover Products, Inc; Fifth Third Bank; FirstEnergy; First National Bank of Pennsylvania; Forcht Bank, NA; Google; FPI Strategies, LLC; Huntington National Bank; JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A.; Mighty Group; Nordic Construction; Ohio AFL-CIO; Partners for Progress, Inc.; Paychex, Inc.; PNC Bank, N.A.; Red Maverick Media; Storytellers Mail, LLC; The Community Bank; The Union Bank; T-Mobile; United Bank and Verizon Wireless.

Forensic extractions of cell phones were also conducted and provided to the court during pre-trial discovery, according to the document.

Once looking inside each of the subpoenas, the government was clearly looking for specific people or organizations. The companies just signed the authenticity form and didn’t spell out the records, except Huntington.

Records given to the government</h4>

Jeffrey Longstreth, who ended up pleading guilty, had his name come up numerous times in the Huntington records.

Each of the following had numerous or extensive documents given.

JPL & Associates had their deposits, checking statements, checks and withdrawals and wire transfers.

Ohio Precious Metals Association Inc., John Longstreth and Constant Content Co. had a significant amount of information given, including wire transfers, some of which weren’t dated, safe deposit box access and canceled checks.

Right Digital LLC had wire transfers, deposits and statements given.

Hardworking Ohioans, one of the major so-called dark money groups whose creator is still a working lobbyist at the Statehouse, had wire transfers, deposits and withdrawals.

Jeffrey Longstreth and 17 Consulting Group LLC, affiliated with Borges, had wire transfers, deposits and canceled checks given....

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AN 1 25

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 17 other Republican attorneys general are questioning the temporary protected status for immigrants from 17 distressed countries. They’re asking officials in President Donald Trump’s explicitly anti-immigrant administration to review whether protections are necessary.

In a statement Tuesday, Yost said some have been allowed to stay in the United States even after it was “safe for them to return home.” However, he didn’t name a single such country — and publicly available reports make it hard to guess which places he might mean.

His office was asked if he could name a person with temporary protected status who could safely return to her or his home country. A spokeswoman responded that it wasn’t the attorney general’s job to make such determinations.

An immigrant advocate said the letter was another way to scare vulnerable immigrants into the shadows. It’s akin to last summer’s false claims by now-President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and others that Haitians under temporary protected status in Springfield were stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets, she said. That led to dozens of bomb threats and reports of violence against immigrants.

“It’s about intimidation,” said Lynn Tramonte, founder of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “It’s about destabilization. These are authoritarian tactics where you make people unsafe in their homes and communities. It’s really sad. J.D. Vance himself brought violence to Springfield.”

Longstanding problems

Yost and the other attorneys general sent a letter to Kristi Noem, Trump’s head of the Department of Homeland Security. Now confirmed, Noem has the power to grant or revoke temporary protected status, or TPS. Her farewell address last week as North Dakota governor was peppered with starkly anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The Trump administration is giving immigration officers an expanded authority to rapidly deport immigrants, including people the Biden administration temporarily allowed into the country under parole authority, according to an internal memo, States Newsroom reported this weekend.

“TPS beneficiaries represent over 1 million immigrants residing in the States who are otherwise without legal status,” the attorneys general’s letter to Noem said. “Converting TPS into a license for long-term residency frustrates congressional aims and only increases the financial and governmental strain on States.”

In addition to Yost, attorneys general from Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming signed the letter to Noem.

The letter makes much of the fact that the word “temporary” is in the name of the designation, and that people from some countries have had temporary protected status for decades.

“Honduras, for instance, first received TPS after a hurricane hit in 1998 and DHS bases its current TPS designation on ‘persist[ing]’ conditions from that same event,” the letter said. “TPS extensions spanning decades have become routine.”

According to statutory language provided by Yost’s office, the Homeland Security secretary can grant TPS if she finds “that there exist extraordinary and temporary conditions in the foreign state that prevent aliens who are nationals of the state from returning to the state in safety.”

Tramonte said the attorneys general are misreading the law.

“It’s called ‘temporary protected status,'” she said. “It’s not called ‘short-term protected status.’ When a crisis happens, whether it’s a natural disaster or a political crisis, it takes years to recover. They’re fixating on the word ‘temporary’ as if that means short-term. But all that means is that Congress said we’re going to give you a break and not deport you because it’s dangerous to send you back.”

Harrowing conditions

In its 2023 report on human rights practices, the U.S. State Department had this to say about Honduras, the country the Republican AGs cite as being designated a TPS country for almost 27 years:

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by government agents; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including threats against media members by criminal elements; serious government corruption; extensive gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual violence, and femicide; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons.”

In fact, of the 17 countries designated for TPS, 11 have the State Department’s most severe travel warning — do not travel. Three have the next-highest, reconsider travel. And three have the second-lowest, exercise increased caution.

Reports for the latter countries — Cameroon, Nepal and El Salvador — indicate how dicey it might be to return there, especially if you’re not a tourist from a developed country.

Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2024 says that El Salvador had been stricken by gang violence, and then “a state of emergency (that was) adopted in March 2022 that suspended basic rights remains in force. Authorities have committed widespread human rights violations, including mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment in detention, and due process violations.”

The Human Rights Watch report for Cameroon detailed “continued clashes between armed groups and government forces throughout Cameroon’s Anglophone and Far North regions severely impacted civilians, with cases of unlawful killings, abductions, and raids on villages increasing in the second half of the year.”

And the State Department’s 2023 report for Nepal described “significant human rights issues (including) credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; arbitrary detention; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media, including violence or threats of violence against journalists and unjustified arrests of journalists.”

Those are the TPS countries that the State Department deems to be the safest of the 17 to travel to. The letter the attorneys general wrote to Noem criticized former President Joe Biden for extending temporary protected status designations for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela, in addition to El Salvador.

Ukraine has been devastated by war since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded in 2022. Sudan has been torn by civil war since 2023, spurring the enlistment of child soldiers, sexual violence and other atrocities. And in Venezuela, the socialist government has made the economy so dysfunctional that 90% live in poverty, and it has the highest crime rate in the world.

Safe?

In a statement announcing that he and other Republican attorneys general called for a review of TPS designations, Yost, said some could safely return to their home countries.

“This program has been applied too loosely, allowing noncitizens to live here indefinitely, even after it’s safe for them to return home,” the statement quoted Yost, who last week announced a 2026 run for governor, as saying.

Asked if the Ohio AG could name one, his spokeswoman said that wasn’t his job.

“The Ohio Attorney General isn’t the person with authority to make TPS judgments, regardless,” the spokeswoman, Bethany McCorkle, said in an email. “That’s why the letter doesn’t call for the designation to be immediately lifted from any one nation.

“What the letter does ask is that the Secretary engage in a review of the country conditions and exercise her judgment regarding the status of countries that have been designated as ‘temporar[ily]’ protected for years — sometimes decades — based on the same insular events,” she added. “If conditions are currently unsafe in a certain country based on new/current factors that would reach the high bar set by Congress for TPS, then the Secretary would have discretion to give TPS on that basis.”

The call for an administration led by a vehemently anti-immigrant president to review and possibly deny immigrants’ protected status might be out of step with public opinion. A December poll sponsored by the National Immigration Forum and the Bulfinch group said that 73% of Americans agreed that immigration policies should protect the persecuted and keep families intact.

Tramonte, of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, said the real point of the letter is to distract the public from the real cause of many Americans’ suffering.

“This gets them headlines, this gets them accolades from the people they’re trying to stir up,” she said. “They’re trying to distract from their bigger agenda, which is getting corporations bigger tax breaks and helping the wealthy while average people are having to work multiple jobs just to pay the rent.”

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

===

AN 1 25

Longstanding problems

The letter makes much of the fact that the word “temporary” is in the name of the designation, and that people from some countries have had temporary protected status for decades.

Tramonte said the attorneys general are misreading the law.

Harrowing conditions

In its 2023 report on human rights practices, the U.S. State Department had this to say about Honduras, the country the Republican AGs cite as being designated a TPS country for almost 27 years:

Reports for the latter countries — Cameroon, Nepal and El Salvador — indicate how dicey it might be to return there, especially if you’re not a tourist from a developed country.

Safe?

In a statement announcing that he and other Republican attorneys general called for a review of TPS designations, Yost, said some could safely return to their home countries.

Asked if the Ohio AG could name one, his spokeswoman said that wasn’t his job.

Tramonte, of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, said the real point of the letter is to distract the public from the real cause of many Americans’ suffering.

===

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an 1 24

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost will appeal a Hamilton County court’s decision to strike down the state’s six-week abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest that was put into effect for several months after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

Yost, along with Ohio Department of Health director Bruce Vanderhoff and the State Medical Board of Ohio’s Kim Rothermel and Bruce Saferin, were listed in the notice of appeal filed this week in the 1st District Court of Appeals. The 1st District is the appellate court that oversees Hamilton County.

Christian Jenkins’ decision in October which struck down a 2019 law that banned abortions after six weeks gestation, a time at which supporters of the law said fetal cardiac activity could be detected.

The law was blocked in court almost from the moment it was enacted, with abortion rights advocates suing to stop enforcement of the law.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022, Yost asked a federal court the same day for the law to be released from its injunction.

The law then went into effect for several months, but was then tied up in court again after abortion rights advocates like Preterm Cleveland and Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region askedthe Ohio Supreme Court, and then a Hamilton County court, to stop the law once again.

When 57% of Ohio voters approved a reproductive rights constitutional amendment in November 2023, attorneys for the abortions rights groups sought to get the law permanently overturned, with the rights enshrined in the new amendment.

During the case, after the amendment was passed by voters, Yost argued that the law shouldn’t be thrown out entirely. He argued that some provisions didn’t conflict with the amendment passed by voters and should be kept, such as mandatory waiting periods and multiple appointments required for abortion care.

This past October, Jenkins agreed with the groups, saying the new amendment “now unequivocally protects the right to abortion” and that the law should be permanently overturned “to give meaning to the voice of Ohio’s voters.”

“Unlike the Ohio Attorney General, this court will uphold the Ohio Constitution’s protection of abortion rights,” Jenkins wrote in his decision. “The will of the people of Ohio will be given effect.”

Jenkins used Yost’s own legal analysis of the amendment (written prior to its passage) against him in the ruling. Yost wrote in the analysis that the amendment “would give greater protection to abortion to be free from regulation than at any time in Ohio’s history.”

“Ohio would no longer have the ability to limit abortions at any time before a fetus is viable,” Yost wrote. “Passage of Issue 1 would invalidate the Heartbeat Act, which restricts abortions (with health and other exceptions) after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is usually at about six weeks.”

Jessie Hill, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, who represented abortion rights groups in the case, said they intend to “keep fighting to ensure that the amendment is enforced, and Ohioans’ rights are protected.”

“We are disappointed that the attorney general continues to spend taxpayer money on this lawsuit and disregard the very clear message that Ohioans sent when an overwhelming majority approved the Reproductive Freedom Amendment to our constitution,” Hill said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

The Attorney General’s Office said seeking appellate review “is a necessary and appropriate step.”

“The state respects the will of the people regarding the six-week abortion ban, but the state is also obligated to protect provisions in (Senate Bill) 23, as passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor, that the constitutional amendment does not address,” spokesperson Bethany McCorkle said in a statement. “It is up to the courts to determine how conflicts between those two documents are resolved.”

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

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11 24

David Anthony Yost (born December 22, 1956) is an American politician and lawyer who currently serves as the 51st Attorney General of Ohio. A member of the Republican Party, Yost previously served as Ohio State Auditor.

During his tenure as Attorney General, he supported attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.@@ He has played a key role in defending an Ohio abortion law that prohibits abortion six weeks into a pregnancy (before many women know they are pregnant) without exceptions for rape or incest.^[1] In 2022, he was involved in a public controversy over a 10-year-old rape victim who had to flee Ohio for Indiana to get an abortion to avoid carrying her rapist's child.^[2]

Education and early career

Yost graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Capital University Law School.^[3] After earning his bachelor's degree, Yost became a journalist with the Columbus Citizen-Journal.^[4]

Political career

Yost later served in senior positions within the administration of Columbus mayor Buck Rinehart and governor George Voinovich.^[5] Yost was appointed Delaware County Auditor in 1999.^[6] In 2003, he became the Delaware County Prosecutor.^[7] He was elected Ohio's 32nd state auditor in November 2010, after earlier vying for the Republican nomination for Ohio attorney general against Mike DeWine.^[8] In January 2017, Yost announced he was running for Ohio Attorney General in 2018.^[9]

Ohio Attorney General (2019–present)

Yost defeated his Democratic opponent Steve Dettelbach, who previously served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, in the 2018 Ohio Attorney General election.^[10] In the 2022 election, Yost was re-elected to his position over Democratic candidate Jeffrey Crossman, a member of the Ohio House from Parma.^[10][11]

Abortion ban

Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Yost filed a successful motion to dissolve the injunction on Ohio's six-week abortion ban.^[12] On June 24, 2022, Yost tweeted that "The Heartbeat Bill is now the law." He released a video statement on YouTube the same day in which he said, "This decision returns abortion policy to the place it has always belonged: to the elected policies branches of the governments."^[13]

Yost's son and daughter-in-law publicly criticized his actions in messages on Facebook on June 24 and 25, the former saying, "[T]he lack of pro choice is blatantly against what this country says it is on its banners and documents. The land of the free doesn't seem so free right now."^[14]

On June 30, 2022, shortly after the ban became effective, a 10-year-old rape victim who was "six weeks and three days" pregnant traveled from the Columbus area to Indianapolis, Indiana, to get an abortion to avoid carrying her rapist's child.^[15][16][17] The incident was widely reported, beginning with an article in the Indianapolis Star newspaper on July 1, and was mentioned by President Joe Biden on July 8 in comments at the White House.^[18] On July 11, Yost disputed the report, saying that neither his office or the state crime lab had any information on the matter, and that his staff had heard "not a whisper" about it; in an interview on July 12, Yost said it was "more likely that this is a fabrication".^[19] That day, the report was confirmed by the Columbus Division of Police and a rape suspect was arrested.^[20]

On July 14, Yost's office shared a backgrounder with media and on Twitter^[21] which listed specific exceptions contained in Ohio's "Heartbeat Law", and suggested, as had Yost in interviews on July 11, that the 10-year-old girl would have been able to obtain a legal abortion under those exceptions. The Ohio Legislative Commission said that nothing in the language of the law explicitly includes the age of the person seeking an abortion as a qualification for exception, and that it was unclear whether the girl would have qualified for a legal abortion.^[2][22] The following week, Yost rejected calls from the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party and others for his resignation.^[23]

Attempt to invalidate 2020 presidential election results

After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Yost filed a "friend-of-the-court" brief in support of the Trump campaign's attempt to invalidate ballots cast in Pennsylvania.^[24][25] However, in December 2020, Yost opposed a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton which sought to subvert the presidential election results and prevent Biden from being certified as the winner.^[26]

2023 East Palestine train derailment

In mid-March 2023, about five weeks after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Yost announced a 58-count civil damages lawsuit against Norfolk Southern for its "glaring negligence" and prioritizing profits over communities' safety.^[27][28]

Social media antitrust investigation

In September 2019, Yost was one out of nine state attorneys general that launched an antitrust investigation into Facebook and Google, to investigate whether or not they were stifling competition in their respective fields.^[29][30]

Voting laws

Yost was sued by a coalition of civil rights groups, including the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the state NAACP chapter, and the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, in February 2024 after his second rejection of a petition for a proposed constitutional amendment, entitled the Ohio Voters Bill of Rights, that would appear on the ballot in the 2024 elections.

The amendment would introduce the automatic registration of voters, discard recent additions to voter identification requirements, and increase ballot drop boxes. After rejecting the first petition in December 2023, Yost's office rejected it for a second time the following month, finding that the amendment's title was "highly misleading and misrepresentative" of its content.^[31][32]

Refusal to permit Joe Biden on the 2024 ballot

In 2024, Yost refused to grant provisional approval for placing Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee on Ohio ballots for the 2024 presidential election. Ohio is one of few states in the United States that has a ballot certification deadline prior to the Democratic National Convention. In 2020, both the Republican and Democratic national conventions were after the ballot certification deadline, but lawmakers provided provisional approval for the candidates to be on the ballot.^[33]

Personal life

Yost and his wife Darlene live in Franklin County, Ohio. They have three children and four grandchildren.^[34]

Yost and Republican lawmaker Kevin D. Miller were the targets of swatting phone calls in December 2023 after false reports of shootings at their homes were made to the police.^[35]

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Watchdog Group Files Emergency Motion with Ohio Supreme Court to Stop AG’s Further Destruction of Documents Sought in Open Records Case

By ExposedByCMD Editors

June 16th, 2023

Featured Investigations, Press Release, RAGA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 16, 2023

Contact:

Arn Pearson, Executive Director, arn@prwatch.org

David Armiak, Research Director, david@prwatch.org

Columbus, Ohio – The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) filed an emergency motion with the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday asking the Court to stop Attorney General Dave Yost’s office from further destroying its controversial communications with the Republican Attorneys General Association and the Rule of Law Defense Fund.

A senior Yost lieutenant gave sworn testimony in a deposition that he is routinely destroying those communications, even though they are covered under the discovery order CMD won in 2021, now pending appeal in the state Supreme Court.

Requests to instruct AG staff to stop that practice were rejected by Yost’s office yesterday.

The emergency motion and supporting documents can be found here.

CMD’s motion asks the Court to order “Attorney General David Yost to instruct his staff to preserve and refrain from destruction of emails, text messages, and other documents, whether stored in personal devices and accounts or official ones, that may be responsive to the discovery requests at issue in this appeal.”

“No such order should be necessary as this obligation arose as soon as the requests were served, and measures to collect and preserve potentially responsive documents should have been taken automatically,” CMD’s motion said. “But attempts by Appellees’ counsel to confirm this with Appellant’s counsel have been unsuccessful.”

“It’s hard to put into words how frustrating it is, as an attorney, to see the office that is supposed to be enforcing the laws of Ohio decide that it is above the law,” said CMD’s lawyer, Jeffrey Vardaro at the Gittes Law Group. “Letting employees destroy records that a court has ordered to be turned over in a lawsuit is not something our justice system should tolerate from anyone, much less the elected official who puts his name on a ‘Sunshine Laws Manual’ every year.”

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and its sister organization, the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), are cash-for-influence organizations that promote and coordinate actions by Republican attorneys general at the behest of its corporate members in the energy, pharmaceutical, telecom, financial, and other industries. RAGA frequently coordinates and influences Republican Attorneys General to use the power of their offices in cases affecting important state and national policy and law.

CMD, a nonpartisan investigative reporting watchdog, has been embroiled in litigation since December 2020 challenging Yost’s refusal to hand over public records concerning his activity with the two powerful influence groups.

At the heart of the dispute is Yost’s arbitrary designation of anything related to RAGA and RLDF as “unofficial” business, and therefore exempt from Ohio’s Open Records Act. CMD won the right to depose the attorney general about his claim in 2021 – a ruling upheld by the Tenth District Court of Appeals last year – but Yost has dragged out proceedings and is now seeking review from the Ohio Supreme Court.

CMD and three amicus groups, the League of Women Voters of Ohio, The Marshall Project, and the Ohio NOW Education and Legal Fund, filed briefs opposing Yost’s appeal yesterday.

“Attorney General Yost’s extraordinary efforts to keep secret his dealings with industry-funded influence groups about official actions he is taking on behalf of Ohio is a clear violation of Ohio’s public records law and cannot be allowed to stand,” said Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director. “RAGA and RLDF literally sell access to Republican AGs for powerful corporations and exert tremendous influence over the actions of the states’ top legal officers.”

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raga off bs w donate button

Dave Yost became Ohio’s 51st Attorney General on January 14, 2019, bringing to the office his extensive experience rooting out fraud, holding the corrupt accountable, and reforming government.

Yost earned his undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University and law degree from Capital University. After working as a Columbus Citizen Journal reporter, he began his public service career as Delaware County’s Auditor and Prosecutor. As Prosecutor, he won the first-ever capital case in Delaware County and took down the largest drug ring in the county’s history.

He became Ohio’s 32nd Auditor of State in January 2011 and spent the next eight years fighting fraud, rooting out corruption and “skinnying down” government. In two terms, he helped convict 170 corrupt public officials and uncovered $30 million in stolen and misspent public funds. At the same time, he promoted efficiency by identifying potential savings of $287 million for governments and school districts.

Through his leadership and at his urging, the General Assembly twice enhanced charter school accountability.

In November 2018, he won statewide election as Attorney General, an office in which he now pursues his mission of protecting Ohio’s citizens while aggressively fighting corruption across the state.

Battling the state’s opioid epidemic is a major focus for his administration, including an initiative to bring more scientific resources to bear on addiction prevention. He also is a leader in the fight against human trafficking.

He and his wife, Darlene, make their home in Franklin County. They have three adult children and three grandchildren.

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an 11 24

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a release Monday that he and 50 other attorneys general are “calling for peace nationwide” with regard to the results of the Tuesday presidential election.

In a press release on Monday, Yost said he and other AGs were respon

ding to national polls “highlighting widespread concerns among Americans about potential post-election unrest.”

“Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s election, we expect that Americans will respond peacefully and we condemn any acts of violence related to the results,” the release stated. “A peaceful transfer of power is the highest testament to the rule of law, a tradition that stands at the heart of our nation’s stability.”

The release did not specify the national polls referenced by the coalition. At the end of October, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed 4 in 10 registered voters were “extremely” or “very” concerned about the use of violence in response to the results of the November general election.

The fellow AGs that Yost said he was collaborating with represent Connecticut, Kansas, Oregon, Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, the Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Violence, the coalition stated, “has no place in the democratic process; we will exercise our authority to enforce the law against any illegal acts that threaten it.”

The comments come after former president and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said he “shouldn’t have left” office after he lost the 2020 election, among other comments, including some already questioning whether the Tuesday election will be legitimate. Trump has consistently refused to accept the results of the 2020 election.

Yost haspublicly put his support behind Trump, calling the former president and his VP candidate, Ohio U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, “the law and order ticket.”

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X.

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AN 4 24

Next to gerrymandering, the biggest institutional driver of dangerous and destructive political misrepresentation in Ohio and across America is the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous 2010 Citizens United ruling allowing unbridled, dark money, pay-to-play corruption, which has now led to the biggest political bribery scandal in state history.

The central feature of that criminal racketeering scheme was the use of 501(c)(4) dark money groups by FirstEnergy and now-imprisoned former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to launder campaign donations and prop up the candidacies of politicians who would support an unnecessary $1.3 billion bailout for the utilities industry at the expense of consumers.

Corporate dark money largess

Householder’s dark money group, Generation Now, has pleaded guilty to participating in the conspiracy, and was used by FirstEnergy to funnel more than $60 million worth of bribes to Householder’s political machine to make him Ohio House Speaker and pass the bailout. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bailout the same day it was passed.

$15 million of the Generation Now came via another dark money group, Partners for Progress. FirstEnergy gave $25 million to Partners for Progress between 2017 and 2019. A FirstEnergy lobbyist named Dan McCarthy was listed as the principal of Partners for Progress in 2017, later leaving to become DeWine’s legislative affairs director where he lobbied to pass the House Bill 6 bailout. Certain FirstEnergy executives were also involved in choosing the three directors of Partners for Progress, two of whom were FirstEnergy lobbyists.

FirstEnergy also gave $1 million in 2017 to a dark money group called Freedom Frontier supporting Jon Husted as he made a Republican Party primary bid for the nomination to run for governor. The group then supported DeWine after Husted dropped out of the primary race to become his running mate.

In 2018, FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million to a Republican Governors Association-affiliated dark money group called State Solutions backing DeWine for governor. In 2019, they gave $300,000 to another dark money group called Securing Ohio’s Future, for a grand total of nearly $4 million in dark money to support DeWine/Husted.

Leaving no pocket unfilled, FirstEnergy also made a $300,000 contribution in 2019 to a dark money group called Liberty Ohio, which a FirstEnergy lobbyist tied to now-Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, calling it “the Huffman C4.”

As far as traditional campaign spending, now-indicted former FirstEnergy executive Chuck Jones hosted a fundraiser for DeWine at his home. The company also gave nearly $1 million in traditional campaign money to legislators, other officeholders, candidates and political parties. This included FirstEnergy’s largely employee-funded political action committee, which gave $25,202 to the 2018 DeWine campaign and $10,000 to his inaugural committee. Alongside Jones providing $12,700 in food and beverages for the DeWine fundraiser, the total in traditional funding comes to $47,902. After the scandal broke in 2020, DeWine pledged to donate $35,000 of that, noting at the time that FirstEnergy executives had not been charged.

Influence peddling

Shortly before winning the 2018 race for governor, DeWine met with FirstEnergy executives at an RGA fundraiser in downtown Columbus on Oct. 10, 2018, the Dayton Daily News first reported. Shortly after, FirstEnergy Solutions donated $500,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association, according to tax records.

Shortly after winning the 2018 race for governor, on Dec. 18, 2018, DeWine, Husted, Jones and now-indicted FirstEnergy executive Michael Dowling met at the Columbus Athletic Club. That same night, Jones and Dowling went from that dinner to the German Village condo of FirstEnergy lobbyist Sam Randazzo, where they seem to have negotiated a $4.3 million payment that FirstEnergy has admitted in a deferred prosecution agreement was a bribe.

When Randazzo was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in December 2023 on 11 felony counts of bribery and embezzlement, the charges included allegations that Randazzo had a corrupt relationship with the FirstEnergy executives stretching back to 2010, allegedly serving as general counsel to the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio while secretly being paid as a consultant for FirstEnergy: Randazzo settled disputes over electricity rates on terms acceptable to the energy companies, then channeled the settlement money through shell companies where he skimmed off a portion, the indictment said.

Between 2016 and 2019, FirstEnergy paid $13 million into Randazzo’s shell companies, a state-level indictment of Randazzo said. Of that, Randazzo passed $7.75 million to the industrial users and pocketed the rest, it said. DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, was married to a man who had been a paid lobbyist for FirstEnergy — and who had received a $10,000 loan from Randazzo in 2016, the indictment said.

In January 2019, as Randazzo was being vetted to chair the PUCO, he told Dawson, DeWine’s then-chief of staff, about the $4.3 million payment, but he did not tell her about the other millions he had received from FirstEnergy, the indictment said. Randazzo didn’t report any of the payments to the Ohio Ethics Commission, it added.

A former aide gave DeWine a 198-page dossier reporting shady financial connections between Randazzo and FirstEnergy on Jan. 28, 2019. But the governor’s office says that Dawson never told the governor about the $4.3 million payment before DeWine nominated Randazzo to chair the PUCO on Feb. 4, 2019.

According to the state indictment, Randazzo spent the rest of the year and part of the next helping to draft and openly lobby for the corrupt bailout. The bailout was passed and signed in July 2019.

Householder and four others were arrested in July 2020. But it wasn’t until the following November — when the FBI searched Randazzo’s condo — that Dawson says she told the governor about the $4.3 million payout.

DeWine has staunchly defended Dawson, just as he defended McCarthy, the former aide and FirstEnergy lobbyist with the dark money bribery pass-through group. McCarthy resigned his position in September 2021, but DeWine has kept Dawson on staff as an advisor earning more than $180,000 per year. In September 2023, DeWine appointed McCarthy to the state racing commission.

What’s happened since?

After the scandal broke, the nuclear part of Ohio House Bill 6 was eventually repealed, but the law’s gutting of the state’s renewable energy portfolio still stands, as does the bailout of two 1950s-era coal plants, one of which is in Indiana.

Householder and former state GOP Chairman Matt Borges are serving 20 years and five years respectively in federal prison for their roles. Two other lobbyists cooperated and are awaiting sentencing, while a third died by suicide wearing a “DeWine for governor” t-shirt in June 2021. Randazzo died by suicide on April 9, 2024.

FirstEnergy shareholders have filed a lawsuit, an ongoing case in which DeWine has been subpoenaed and Husted has been called on to give a sworn deposition.

Asked this week about the Oct. 10, 2018 RGA fundraiser meeting with FirstEnergy executives, DeWine claimed, “I don’t remember that. I’m not disputing it. I just don’t remember. I don’t remember the meeting.”

As for the Dec. 18, 2018 dinner with FirstEnergy executives, DeWine has said he doesn’t recall Randazzo’s name coming up.

Asked this week about the $4 million that FirstEnergy spent in dark money supporting his bid for governor, DeWine claimed he didn’t know about it.

*Sure, Jan.

After the death of Randazzo, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has said the state’s prosecution will proceed, and Jones and Dowling, who have pleaded not guilty, will still have to face their day in court.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Ken Parker has said his team will also continue to pursue the widespread corruption case.

Citizens United

Deploying one of the most absurd, naive, and destructively dumb statements I’ve ever read in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from my lifetime, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2010 authored the landmark campaign finance decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission:

“(W)e now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. … The fact that speakers (i.e., donors) may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that these officials are corrupt. … The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy,” Kennedy claimed.

What combination of delusional hallucinogenics was Kennedy on what he made that obnoxious declaration?

As then-Justice John Paul Stevens obsesrved in his decent, the majority’s Citizens United ruling is “a rejection of the common sense of the American people.”

This entire dark money political bribery and money laundering scheme in Ohio was made possible exactly because a narrow majority of Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court declared that for the purposes of the constitution, corporations are people and money is speech.

They followed the Citizens United ruling with several others that removed any and all accountability for dark money political spending, including upholding the SpeechNow.org v. FEC appellate ruling months after Citizens United, and their McCutcheon v. FEC ruling in 2014 by another 5-4 vote.

Combined, these decisions have cleared the way for wealthy individual donors, corporations, and other moneyed special interests to spend unlimited dark money on elections. And oh boy, have they ever.

Outside groups have poured billions of dollars into influencing American elections since the Citizens United ruling.

Take just our races in Ohio for one of our seats in the U.S. Senate, and just outside spending for or against candidates: According to OpenSecrets.org, in 2004 the amount was just over $45,000. In 2010, it was nearly $3.5 million. In 2016, it was more than $54 million. In 2022, it was just shy of $100 million dollars.

Restoring representation

This is all so far beyond ridiculous there’s nary a word for it. Gerrymandered rigging of district maps to guarantee supermajority party power goes hand-in-hand with a system of campaign finance that allows for this kind of pervasive pay-to-play corruption infecting government.

If voters are ever to truly save Ohio and the American Republic by restoring true representation of the people and the people’s interests, poisonous gerrymandering and corrupt political spending have to be addressed as first priorities.

This should have been done here in Ohio nearly four years ago when the FirstEnergy scandal first broke. But supermajority Republican lawmakers, with DeWine by their side, instead spent 2021 and 2022 imposing more unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps. And while they’ve found time to indulge every culture war distraction on the extremist right-wing menu, they’ve done absolutely nothing to address widespread public corruption.

This relentless, belligerent misrepresentation of the people of Ohio and our best interests has only led to miserable public outcomes, and for myself, as a seventh generation Ohioan whose family moved here in 1805, it all embarrasses us deeply in the eyes of the nation.

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October 2, 2023

Attorney General Bird Leads Letter Opposing Biden Administration Radical Environmental Scheme for Development Projects

DES MOINES- Today, Attorney General Bird led a coalition of 24 states in a letter opposing a proposed Biden Administration rule that will illegally mandate social, environmental, and race-based regulations for infrastructure projects and stop development in its tracks. The Biden Administration’s woke environmental scheme is part of its larger...

october 2, 2023

Attorney General Bird Leads Letter Opposing Biden Administration Radical Environmental Scheme for Development Projects

DES MOINES- Today, Attorney General Bird led a coalition of 24 states in a letter opposing a proposed Biden Administration rule that will illegally mandate social, environmental, and race-based regulations for infrastructure projects and stop development in its tracks.

The Biden Administration’s woke environmental scheme is part of its larger radical climate change plan. With the new rule in effect, Americans will pay more for energy; face delays for projects such as new housing, power plants, roads, and bridges; and even have to cancel projects due to significant price hikes and delays.

This Biden Administration rule not only eliminates the common-sense Trump-era reforms that made development easier, but it goes even further than before. The new rule imposes expensive red-tape regulations for project developers and sets an illegal double standard. With the new rule in effect, projects that align with the Biden Administration’s radical climate change agenda will be favored, while projects that use traditional energy sources will face stricter regulations.

“The Biden Administration will stop at nothing to force its woke climate agenda on the rest of America,” said Attorney General Bird. “Environmental activists shouldn’t dictate how or when we can build a home or bridge. This rule is nothing more than another illegal power grab. And if left unchecked, the new rule will devastate important, job-creating infrastructure projects.”

A coalition of 17 governors, including Governor Kim Reynolds, also wrote to oppose the rule.

The proposed rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act and federal law requiring that significant legislation go through Congress, rather than unelected bureaucrats. // CHEVRON DERFERENCE DEREGULATION

Iowa led the letter joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Read the full letter here

ref 18 pp

...tember 29, 2023 Council on Environmental Quality 730 Jackson Place NW Washington, DC 20503 Re: Reconsideration of Council on Environmental Quality National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations Revisions Phase Two (Docket ID CEQ– 2023–0003) The Attorneys General of Iowa and the 23 undersigned States respectfully submit these comments in response to the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Revisions of the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) Implementing Regulations Revisions Phase Two (Proposed Rule).1 C

EQ’s Proposed Rule serves as a dramatic example of federal and administrative overreach. Rather than serve its long-term goals of collecting information about large development projects, the Proposed Rule injects major substantive considerations into the NEPA process. In doing so, the Proposed Rule turns NEPA on its head, and turns it farther away from the effective reform process started in 2020. This radical and illegal climate power grab goes far beyond CEQ’s delegated authority. Congress passed NEPA to achieve laudable goals: to reduce delays and promote better decision-making consistent with national environmental policy.2 Tasked with NEPA’s

...

p 13?

other requirements,” by contrast, will leave an agency unsure of when it has considered enough factors in its analysis. That uncertainty will lead to front-end delays and back-end litigation risk. How can a court determine whether an NGO plaintiff is correct that the agency didn’t consider enough of these “other requirements” in its initial planning? And even if a court adjudicated that issue, the guidance is vague enough that other courts in other jurisdictions could come to conflicting outcomes. Such a regulatory patchwork stands to create real harm, particularly given the lack of certainty for the Proposed Rule’s consistent application.

Similarly, references in the Proposed Rule to “meaningful” public engagement and public participation introduce a fuzzy, unpredictable, un-analyzable element into the NEPA process. The 2020 CEQ regulatory revision was largely motivated by a desire to streamline and simplify what had grown over the decades since NEPA’s enactment into a sprawling, byzantine, insiders’ game. Project reviews were taking too long, taking up too many pages, sprawling into subject areas beyond what Congress intended, and slowing down or deterring needed permits and other actions.

Many, if not most, supporters of the NEPA amendments in the recent FRA intended to similarly streamline the process, as evidence by those amendments’ adoption of key aspects of the 2020 rule. But CEQ here is adding or restoring (from the original 1978 regulations) elements that will cause longer, broader-ranging reviews and less legal certainty. The Proposed Rule is therefore in tension not only with the original statute, but also with Congress’s intent in amending NEPA earlier this year.

respectfully submitted,

Brenna Bird

Attorney General of Iowa

Steve Marshall

Attorney General of Alabama

Treg Taylor

Attorney General of Alaska

Tim Griffin

Attorney General of Arkansas

Ashley Moody

Attorney General of Florida

Chris Carr

Attorney General of Georgia

Raúl R. Labrador

Attorney General of Idaho

Theodore E. Rokita

Attorney General of Indiana

Kris Kobach

Attorney General of Kansas

Jeff Landry

Attorney General of Louisiana

Andrew T. Bailey

Attorney General of Missouri

Lynn Fitch

Attorney General of

Mississippi

Austin Knudsen

Attorney General of Montana

Mike Hilgers

Nebraska Attorney General

Drew Wrigley

Attorney General of North

Dakota

Dave Yost

Attorney General of Ohio

Gentner Drummond

Attorney General of Oklahoma

Alan Wilson

Attorney General of South

Carolina

Jonathan Skrmetti

Tennessee Attorney General

Ken Paxton

Attorney General of Texas

Sean D. Reyes

Attorney General of Utah

Jason Miyares

Attorney General of Virginia

Patrick Morrisey

Attorney General of West

Virginia

Bridget Hill

Attorney General of Wyoming

an 7 22

Indiana's Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita told Fox News anchor Jesse Watters on Wednesday evening that he intends to open a criminal investigation into the provider who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio that had to travel to The Hoosier State to obtain the procedure.

The girl was 45 days along and unable to terminate the forced pregnancy because The Buckeye State banned most abortions past six weeks – with no exceptions for rape or incest – immediately following the United States Supreme Court's right-wing majority decision retracting the constitutional right to abortion in its reversal of Roe versus Wade on June 24th.

Indiana allows abortions up until the 13th week as long as mandated conditions are met. Its rules are likely to tighten, however, when state lawmakers convene in an emergency session on July 25th to discuss post-*Roe*policy plans.

In Ohio, the restrictions are predicated on what legislators and anti-choice activists claim is the detection of a heartbeat. But that contention is not supported by empirical medical data.As an April 17th NBC News report noted, embryos have no structured heart at six weeks. Instead, there is "a tube that generates sporadic electrical impulses that eventually coordinate into rhythmic pulses."

Live Science also explained in detail last September that "after the detection of the flutter at six weeks, the heart muscle continues to develop over the next four to six weeks, undergoing the folding and bending that needs to happen for the heart to take its final shape."

On Tuesday, a 27-year-old suspect was taken into custody and confessed to twice assaulting the child. The arrest occurred while numerous Ohio Republicans – including Governor Mike DeWine,Attorney General Dave Yost, and Congressman Jim Jordan – were publicly suggesting that the story was a fabrication. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board called the account "a fanciful tale." None of them have issued a formal apology in light of the accused rapist's capture.

Incidentally, Yost had expressed his doubts on Monday's Jesse Watters Primetime. During Wednesday's broadcast, Rokita blamed President Joe Biden's immigration policies for the crime despite the alleged perpetrator having lived in Columbus, Ohio for seven years.

"I shouldn't be here. I mean, first of all, this is an illegal immigration issue because likely of Biden's lawlessness at the border and everything going on down there. That's why Indiana as a non-border state has actually filed several independent lawsuits on that," Rokita said.

While justice for the victim may be served in an Ohio courtroom, Rokita is taking a much different approach in neighboring Indiana.

"Then we have the rape, and then we have this abortion activist acting as a doctor with a history of failing to report," he continued as Fox displayed a picture of the doctor who aided the underaged victim. "So we're gathering the information, we're gathering the evidence as we speak, and we're gonna fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure. If she failed to report in Indiana, it's a crime to not report, to intentionally not report."

Next, Rokita fired off several conspiracy theories.

"This is a horrible, horrible scene caused by Marxists and socialists and those in the White House who want lawlessness at the border. And then this girl was politicized – politicized – for the gain of killing more babies, alright? That was the goal,**" Rokita declared. "And this abortion **activist**is out there front and center. The**lame stream media – the fake news** – is right behind it and unfortunately in Indiana, the**paper of record is fake news** and they were right there jumping in on all this thinking that it was gonna be great for their abortionist movement when this girl has been so brutalized."

Watch below or at this link.

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https://www.ewg.org/energy/22892/ohio-shady-front-groups-fight-dirty-attack-grassroots-campaign-against-1-billion

10/19

Ohio, Shady Front Groups Fight Dirty To Attack Grassroots Campaign Against $1 Billion Nuke/Coal Bailout

An ugly political war is raging in Ohio, pitting consumer and environmental advocates against big utilities and dark-money front groups that want to make electricity customers pay more than $1 billion to bail out failing nuclear and coal-fired power plants. The bad guys are fighting dirty, using deceitful scare tactics and alleged cash payoffs that are now under investigation by the state attorney general, to derail the anti-bailout campaign.

It’s a fight for the future of energy that could erupt in other states as utilities seek public subsidies to prop up their outdated, inefficient, dirty and dangerous power plants against competition from cheaper and cleaner solar and wind power. Figures compiled by EWG show that in the past three years, five states have handed utilities more than $15 billion in taxpayer-funded bailouts of failing nuclear plants.

This summer, Ohio utility interests spent almost $10 million to push through legislation to slap a surcharge on ratepayers’ monthly electricity bills in a move to subsidize two nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions and two coal plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp. Not only are the plants not needed to provide a secure supply of electricity but the bill would also effectively stop state renewable energy and efficiency mandates for utilities.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill. But a grassroots group, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, wants to let voters decide whether to overturn the law.

The anti-bailout campaign has until Oct. 21 to collect more than 265,000 signatures to put a referendum on the November 2020 ballot. The bailout surcharge would be on hold until the vote. But two shadowy front groups – Generation Now andOhioans for Energy Security,both of which have refused to reveal their funding sources – are trying to keep the question off the ballot.

Last month, Ohioans for Energy Security unveiled a TV ad that used ominous military imagery and voice-of-doom narration to imply falsely that because Chinese banks had lent money for natural-gas plants that would benefit if the nukes and coal-burners were closed, the anti-bailout campaign is helping Beijing “meddle in our elections”:

>. They shuttered our factories. Now they’re coming for our energy jobs. The Chinese government is quietly invading our American electric grid, intertwining themselves financially in our energy infrastructure. Now a special-interest group boosting Chinese financial interests is targeting Ohio’s energy – taking Ohio money, exporting Ohio jobs,even risking our national security.

Although FirstEnergy Solutions says it has no connection to Ohioans for Energy Security, Bloomberg reported that two people featured in the ad had, in an earlier video, identified themselves as employees of the utility.

As Ohioans for Energy Security’s $3 million-plus ad campaign continues, Generation Now hired a consulting firm called FieldWorks to try to convince voters not to sign the petition calling for the anti-bailout referendum.

Last week, the Dayton Daily News reported that Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts alleged that unidentified door-to-door solicitors had offered their petition circulators $10,000 to $100,000 to quit and offered to buy signed petitions. Generation Now told the Daily News that FieldWorkswas not authorized to offer cash, and a staffer was fired “after misbehavior was documented.”

Buying or selling election petitions is a felony. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said he had opened an investigation into the allegations, saying his office “will not tolerate harassment and intimidation in the state’s petition process.”

A third anti-referendum front group has now surfaced, misleadingly called Protect Ohio Clean Energy Jobs. Emails and documents obtained by our colleagues at the Energy and Policy Institute revealed that an outside lobbyist for FirstEnergy Solutions is the group’s treasurer.

The group is running Facebook adsthat direct people to SaveOhioCleanEnergyJobs.com, a site that provides false and misleading information about the referendum and urges voters to “remove your signature before it is filed with the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.”

Efforts to thwart Ohioans’ grassroots campaign for clean energy are of a piece with strategies we’re seeing across the nation. Utilities want to continue to control the grid with power from their expensive central plants, and slow down the inevitable transition to renewable sources that serve customers rather than generate profits for shareholders. This greedy and shortsighted strategy is driving up costs for everyone, including vulnerable low-income families, increasing air pollution that threatens public health and fueling the climate crisis.

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no lnx many, video

https://www.energyandpolicy.org/ohioans-for-energy-security/

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Who’s behind Ohioans for Energy Security’s ad campaign to scare voters?

Dave Anderson • August 28, 2019

Ohioans for Energy Security, a new entity blanketing Ohio with a wave of television ads defending the bailout of FirstEnergy Solutions, is brought to you by the same people who campaigned for the controversial bailout plan.

The group formed last month in Ohio as a for-profit Limited Liability Corporation. It just launched a $1 million ad campaign designed to scare voters away from signing petitions toplace a referendum on House Bill 6 on the 2020 ballot. The bill in question, passed by the Ohio General Assembly and signed by Governor Mike DeWine in July, will force Ohio consumers to pay to bail out uncompetitive nuclear and coal plants in Ohio. It also rolls back Ohio’s life-and-money saving clean energy standards, which helped to support 112,000 jobs in the Buckeye State.

“In the coming weeks, don’t give your information to the Chinese government,” Ohioans for Energy Security tells visitors to its website. “Don’t sign their petitionallowing China control over Ohio.”

Ohioans for Energy Security’s website tells voters to call its hotline to report petition gatherers. Petition signatures for statewide referendums are submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State and Attorney General, not the Chinese government.

Ohioans for Energy Security points to several reports that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has been among the banks that financed several new gas projects in Ohio developed by Clean Energy Future, a company that opposed HB 6.

The Columbus Dispatch reviewed those reports and concluded that “the group behind the commercial offered no evidence that such a plot exists.” It didn’t find “any evidence that the Chinese government intends to play a role in the possible repeal of House Bill 6.”

The Cleveland Scene writes that the group’s “bonkers” first ad “continues with even less tenuous grasps on the issues surrounding HB 6.”

Ohioans for Energy Security doesn’t mention that the broad-based opposition to HB 6 includes consumer advocates, environmentalists, free market groups, health experts, and manufacturers, as a quick review of opponent testimony on the bill will show.

The pro-bailout group also doesn’t mention Securities and Exchange Commission filings that show the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has committed many millions of dollars to FirstEnergy Corp., the parent company that spawned FES.A March 2018 declaration by Charles Moore, FES’s chief restructuring officer, also included the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China on a list of “interest parties and significant creditors” in FES’s bankruptcy case, under the subheading “Banks, Lenders, UCC Lien.”

Ohioans for Energy Security is led by the spokesperson for another pro-bailout group backed by FirstEnergy Solutions

Carlo Loparo is listed as the president of Ohioans for Energy Security on political issue ad disclosures on file with the Federal Communications Commission. Loparo also serves as the group’s public spokesperson.

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Loparo is also the spokesperson for the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance (OCEJA), a coalition “powered by FirstEnergy Solutions” that launched last fall with the help of the utility’s outside lobbyists and public relations consultants, and campaigned in support of HB 6.

Loparo is the president of the Columbus-based Loparo Public Relations, and boasts 25 years of experience in “media relations, strategic message development and crisis communications,” according to his firm’s website.

Amy Natoce, the vice president of Loparo Public Relations, was the political director for Dave Yost’s successful campaign for Ohio Attorney General. Yost will soon decide on whether to approve of revised summary language for the referendum petition, a first step toward getting the referendum on the ballot in 2020. Attorneys representing FES and Generation Now, Inc., a dark money group that spent millions on ads supporting HB 6, have been targeting Yost’s office with letters opposing the effort to put the issue on the ballot.

Ohioans for Energy Security’s first ad uses stock footage, features employees of FirstEnergy Solutions

“Don’t sign your name to a plan that kills Ohio jobs, harms Ohio communities, and endangers our energy independence,” Ohioans for Energy Security’s first ad tells viewers as stoic headshots of several individuals flash on screen.

:{:{}:

The ad doesn’t identify those individuals, but at least three of the individuals appear to be recycled from stock footage that had previously been used in a 2017 Ohio ballot initiative ad around prescription drug prices.

Image from 2017 prescription drug ballot initiative ad

Image from 2019 Ohioans for Energy Security ad

Image from 2017 prescription drug ballot initiative ad

Image from 2019 Ohioans for a Secure Energy Future ad

Image from 2019 Ohioans for Energy Security ad

The 2017 ad which used the same stock photos, called “Step Forward,” no longer appears online, though Ballotpedia references it in a database of ads from the 2017 prescription drug initiative campaign. A copy was provided to the Energy and Policy Institute.

That 2017 ad was funded by “Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices,” which employedRex Elsass, a Republican operative and the owner of Strategic Group for Media.

:{:{}:

Some of Ohioans for Energy Security’s ad contracts on file with the FCC name as the buyer Strategic Media Placement, also owned by Elsass. The same firm made ad buys for Generation Now.

The Ohionans for Energy Security ad also includes several employees of FirstEnergy Solutions who also appeared in earlier ads supporting HB 6, produced by the dark money group Generation Now, Inc. Some also appeared in videos produced by the FES-backed Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.

:{:{}:

A screenshot of a Generation Now Facebook ad featuring Matt Messenger, who the ad did not not disclose is a project manager at FES’s Perry nuclear power plant.

Ohioans for Energy Security first ad features a similar image of Messenger, without disclosing his name or employer

Back in June, the Energy and Policy Institute asked a spokesperson for FES at Sitrick and Company why the utility’s employees were appearing in Generation Now’s ads, and if it was funding the group’s efforts. The spokesperson said he would “be happy to look into this and get back to you,” but then never responded with any further information.

A monthly fee statement filed in FES’s bankruptcy case later revealed that Sitrick & Company staff discussed EPI’s inquiry with “D. Griffing” and the “Dewey Square” team. David Griffing is the vice president of government affairs for FES. The Dewey Square Groupis a lobbying firm that has received nearly $800,000 for its work on FES’s bailout campaigns in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which included work on the launch and operations of the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.

Excerpt from Sitrick & Company’s filing in FES’s bankruptcy case discussing EPI’s inquiry regarding FES employees working with Generation Now

Links to Generation Now’s ad firm and a pro-Householder PAC backed by Murray Energy

The server for the group’s website – www.ohioansforenergysecurity.com – also hosts the websites of Elsass’s Strategy Group Company and Front Porch Strategies.

It also hosts a site – LarryHouseholderFightsforus.com – supporting Ohio’s Republican House Speaker Larry Householder, whose rise to the speakership was backed by FirstEnergy and Generation Now. Householder then led the drive to pass HB 6. The pro-Householder site is paid for by the Michigan-based Hardworking Americans Committee, which spent over $450,000 on ads opposing Householder’s Republican primary opponent Kevin Black in 2018.

Federal Elections Commission data shows the Hardworking Americans Committee received $50,000 in 2018 from the PAC of Murray Energy, a coal producer that stands to benefit from HB 6.

The Hardworking Americans also received $50,000 that year from Political Education Patterns, the PAC for the Cleveland-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18. IUOE Local 18 doled out $295,000 to Generation Now in 2018 and 2019, according to FEC data. Mark A. Totman, the union’s VP, serves as one of Governor Dewine’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Nominating Council, where he represents organized labor.

Updated at 7:30 ET on Aug. 28, 2019 to include information about Ohioans for Energy Security’s use of stock footage in its ad.

Posted in: Coal, FirstEnergy, Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance Tagged in: carlo loparo, coal bailout, firstenergy solutions, generation now inc, hb 6, larry householder, loparo public relations, nuclear bailout, ohio clean energy jobs alliance, ohio secretary of state, ohioans for energy security, rex elsass

Posted by Dave Anderson

Dave Anderson is the policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute. Dave has been working at the nexus of clean energy and public policy since 2008. Prior to joining the Energy and Policy Institute, he was an outreach coordinator for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is also an alumnus of the Sierra Club and the Alliance for Climate Protection (now the Climate Reality Project). Dave’s research has helped to spur public scrutiny of political attacks on clean energy and climate science by powerful special interests, such as ExxonMobil and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). His work has been cited by major media outlets, such as CBS News and the Wall Street Journal, and he has served as a speaker on panels at national solar industry conferences. Dave holds a MA in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire, where he also received a BA in Humanities.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/ohios-republican-attorney-general-is-going-to-war-with-trump-to-try-and-save-obamacare/

Trump is forcing his Justice Department, over the objections of his own attorney general, to support the position of a coalition of right-wing states suing to strike down the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare” in its entirety.

But at least one GOP state attorney general is among those fighting back. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ohio’s Dave Yost is advising a federal court to throw out the lawsuit:

Yost said in an interview he agrees that the individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional but disagrees that the rest of the law is also therefore invalid.

Yost plans to file a friend-of the-court brief in the5th Circuit Court of Appeal. The brief will argue the individual mandate can be removed from the law without eliminating protections for pre-existing conditions, insurance caps and other parts of the law. About 1.9 million non-elderly Ohioans have pre-existing conditions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The lawsuit is rooted in the GOP tax bill passed at the end of 2017, which among other things eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate, and in the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, which said the mandate was constitutional under Congress’ power to tax. Since the mandate no longer exists, the lawsuit argues, it is no longer a tax, and therefore the entire law — pre-existing conditions, community rating, insurance exchanges, essential benefits, tax credits, Medicaid expansion, Medicare reforms, all of it — must be struck down.

The lawsuit is broadly considered ridiculous even by conservative experts— most of the law’s provisions have nothing to do with the individual mandate, and when Congress eliminated the mandate while keeping everything else, they were clearly establishing the mandate is severable from the rest of the law. Nevertheless, the lawsuit found sympathetic ears in Judge Reed O’Connor, an extremely partisan federal judge in Fort Worth with ties to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). O’Connor ruled in favor of the lawsuit, but his ruling is on hold and under review by the Fifth Circuit — and Trump’s DOJ is trying to persuade them to uphold it.
20 GOP state attorneys general, led by Texas AG Ken Paxton, initially brought the lawsuit, but Ohio was never among them. Despite being firmly in Republican control for nearly a decade, the state has benefited hugely from the ACA — it adopted the Medicaid expansion, and relies heavily on ACA programs to keep rural hospitals afloat and combat the opioid crisis. Losing all these programs would be a disaster for Ohio, and Republicans there know it.
In addition to Yost’s brief, over adozen Democratic state attorneys general led by California’s Xavier Becerra are mounting a defense of the ACA.

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