DeWine, M Gov
raga
merri ok
bribery householder firstenergy RGA yost ag gop
anomaly:
2nd ex congressman as AG?! (coingate was before his time? AG Dann?)
trend: run for gov 2018, wins even when rust belt flip to dems (not Ohio, kasich terms out, gear up for 2010)
voted for gun control?!
$1.7M raised for DeWine inauguration events
Darrel Rowland,Randy Ludlow
drowland@dispatch.com
The inaugural committee that celebrated the ascension of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted raised $1.7 million for an assortment of events.
However, the committee had spent only $1 million of its haul as of Thursday, ending the reporting period with nearly $700,000 on hand, according to a finance report filed Tuesday with the office of Secretary of...
---
nov 2024
By
Rotunda Rumblings
Prison break? Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who’s serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for corruption, is preparing to ask President-elect Donald Trump for executive clemency, Jeremy Pelzer reports. Householder’s campaign attorney, Scott Pullins, says the Perry County Republican will file the clemency request closer to Trump’s inauguration next January, as well as work to “build support and communicate with” the president-elect and his team. Trump, as president, will have the power to either issue a full pardon – which would allow Householder to run for public office again – or commute his prison sentence.
Happy to help:Gov. Mike DeWine is in the process of picking a new U.S. senator to fill the seat left by Vice President-elect JD Vance. Outgoing Cleveland-area Republican state Sen. Matt Dolan wants DeWine to know he’s available. “I still have the fire in the belly to serve Ohioans, and I think I can do a good job in the U.S. Senate to help our country and our state move forward,” Dolan said to Anna Staver of WOSU. Dolan has run (and lost) in the last two Republican primaries for U.S. Senate.
Big plans for the Big Three:U.S. Senator-elect Bernie Moreno, the first ever car dealer in the chamber, sat for an interview with the Detroit Free Press and laid out an ambitious automotive agenda. It includes freezing fuel economy standards, removing California’s ability to set its won stricter emissions standards, repealing tax credits for electric vehicles, and offering credits to companies that build cars domestically. Of Trump, Moreno said “I think we are on the same page here.”
Frank-ly speaking: Secretary of State Frank LaRose is “likely a strong contender” to be Trump’s pick as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to Politico’s John Sakellariadis. CISA, a $3 billion agency created by Trump in 2018 to protect federal networks – including elections systems – and key U.S. infrastructure, has come under fire from Republicans, who claim its anti-disinformation efforts single out conservatives. If LaRose – who’s also been talked about as a potential appointee to Vice President-elect JD Vance’s Senate seat by Gov. Mike DeWine – wins the Trump administration job, DeWine would also get to appoint a new secretary of state for the final two years of LaRose’s term.
Blue linings:Democrats are smarting from being crushed yet again across Ohio, but Franklin County is something of a blue beacon for the party. Jordan Laird writes in The Columbus Dispatch that Democrats control all of the county’s executive offices for the first time in Franklin County, the largest county in the state and one that has turned increasingly Democratic the last decade, making it ever more important to statewide Democrats’ prospects.
gibney doc hbo mayer 4 25 DARK MONEY GAME
PVT INVESTigators, tried to buy sign collectors and co’s
2 suicides, LH re-elected after scandAL BROKE
DEWINE 5 MILLION?
AN 1 25 COP VIDS?
GOP Ohio gov signs bill that could charge public up to $750 for access to 'public records'
---
NOTE MTA NAT’L CORP CHARTER REVOKE FIRSTENERGY? 6 24
An analysis by OpenSecrets revealed in March that "dark money groups are spending at record levels in their efforts to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. elections."
Ohio Republican Governor Mike Dewine, however, was ahead of the times.
According to Cleveland.com, "newly revealed text messages and other documents suggest" the GOP leader "personally solicited" a portion of dark money he received to boost his gubernatorial campaign in 2018 from FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, who has since been indicted on bribery charges.
READ MORE:Analysis shows 'unprecedented surge' of Dark Money ahead of 2024 elections
"Chuck. Can u call me?" DeWine wrote Jones on Oct. 13, 2018, according to the report, noting "that a teachers’ union gave a million dollars the day before to a group backing his Democratic rival."
After Jones forwarded the message to Mike Dowling, a FirstEnergy senior vice president, Dowling wrote, "Chuck – go ahead and call Mike DeWine on the $500k. It’s going to RGA’s C(4) called State Solutions. All set."
RGA refers the "pro-DeWine Republican Governor’s Association," according to Cleveland.com.
The news outlet reports, "Records show FirstEnergy had already spent millions backing DeWine, including its subsidiary giving $500,000 to" RGA "just two days prior. By Oct. 16, 2018, the FirstEnergy men agreed to a 'dark money' contribution, which are unlimited in size and not publicly disclosed.'"
READ MORE:How Citizens United cleared the way for the biggest political bribery scandal in Ohio history
Cleveland.com reports:
*When DeWine came looking for a boost with his October 2018 text message to Jones, FirstEnergy’s top executives wondered if they had already done enough. The company had done 'more than anyone,' Dowling told Jones in a text message. Dowling, FirstEnergy’s top lobbying agent, texted Jones that DeWine 'already knows about' the $500,000 contribution that FirstEnergy’s subsidiary provided to the RGA that week. The two mulled how to respond but made up their mind to provide another donation by Oct. 16. Jones told Dowling he’d call DeWine that evening to tell him.
===
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.
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 Twitter.
==
---
---
3 23 yahoo greg c also https://www.**opednews**.com/articles/East-Palestine-Train-Derai-Democracy_Democracy-History_Real-Democracy_Train-Crash-230309-199.html
Norfolk Southern Corporation train derailment and subsequent hazardous chemical release in and beyond East Palestine, Ohio are the inevitable result of multiple anti-democratic realities.
Many are interconnected and are the same for the roughly 1000 train derailments per year.
Private ownership of railroads
Norfolk Southern Corporation’s record earnings in 2022 benefited its top managers, speculators and investors. Maximizing profits have been prioritized over necessary investments in technology upgrades and worker safety. The Railroad Workers United in response is calling for public ownership of railroads, as they once were in WWI.
Lack of worker power
Strikes are powerful tactics of workers to exert leverage against management on safety issues and fair treatment. Unions representing rail workers have been virtually unable to strike since passage of the Railway Labor Act in 1926, which gives the government, specifically the President and Congress, vast powers to force workers to accept alternative means of resolving disputes.
No community rights
Communities have little authority to control material coming into or even passing through their jurisdictions by trains or trucks if that material can be defined as “commerce,” based on the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Ohio state and E. Palestine officials weren’t even notified the Norfolk Southern train that derailed was carrying vinyl chloride, ethylhexyl acrylate and other highly toxic chemicals.
Corporate campaign contributions
The Railroad industry has poured $85 million into federal candidate campaigns, political parties and outside spending groups since 2002. Norfolk Southern’s political investments have been $17 million since 1990.At the state level, the corporation invested $98,000 into Ohio political races since 2018, with Gov. Mike DeWine (who at first didn’t call for federal assistance following the E. Palestine disaster since he didn’t see a problem) being the largest recipient. At the very least, political campaign contributions buy access to public officials; at worst, buys favors.
Corporate lobbying
The railroad industry invested $24.6 million to employ 265 reported lobbyiststo influence the federal government in 2022 – Norfolk Southern’s portion was $1.8 million. Rail lobbyists and $6 million from the rail industry to GOP campaigns in 2017 effectively reversed requirements that rail cars carrying hazardous flammable materials have modern electronic braking systems. Lobbyists have sought for fewer workers on trains, trains to be longer and heavier, and reduced fines for penalties– as well as against installing modern electronic braking systems, paid sick leave for workers and having to define trains carrying hazardous chemicals like the Norfolk Southern that derailed in E. Palestine as “high hazard,” which would increase additional safety requirements, costs and public notification.
Supreme Court decisions
The High Court decided that corporate entities have the constitutional right to contribute to political campaigns. This has permitted corporations like Norfolk Southern to corrupt the political process favorable to their interests, such as the previously mentioned laws and regulations profitable to railroads, Supreme Court-granted corporate Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights prevent surprise inspections of corporate property like trains meant to protect workers and communities.
Ineffective and/or captured regulatory agencies
Public safety inspections are not only limited by constitutional rights, but by regulatory agency funding. The Federal Railroad Administration, the major railroad regulatory agency, has only 400 inspectors. This has forced the FHA to increasingly allow railroad corporations to inspect their own trains, tracks and signals. The EPA recently announced that its requiring Norfolk Southern to directly test for dioxins in East Palestine. Where’s the public accountability when, in effect, an entity guilty of crime gets to be the prosecutor, judge and jury?
Criminalization of protest
Forty-five states have considered 265 “anti-protest” bills, 39 of which have already passed in 20 states since 2017. Penalties of felonies serve as a deterrent to individuals to attend public events and send the message that those who protest must be extremists. This mindset is reflected in the reaction by federal and Ohio “law enforcement” agencies to therecent visit of whistleblower Erin Brockovich to E. Palestine. A report by the agencies "assesses that special interest extremist groups will continue to call for changes in governmental policy, which may lead to protests in/around East Palestine and/or at the Statehouse in Columbus.”
The East Palestine tragedy is sadly just a symptom of current political realities and calls for fundamental systemic change.
Enacting the We the People Amendment, HJR48 that would abolish all corporate constitutional rights and political money defined as free speech, is urgent. But fundamental self-governance goes beyond the amendment.
Independent people's movements led by individuals who’ve been historically treated unjustly is a prerequisite for how to get real democracy on track – for the very first time.
---
---
boing 1 23
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a law drafted to expand gas drilling in state parks and redefines the resulting product as "green energy."
The term green energy typically refers to energy derived from the sun and wind, not fossil fuels. Natural gas is a fossil fuel released by digging into the earth that acts as a greenhouse gas via leakage during transport and when it's combusted. Its main component is methane, a potent heat-trapping gas.
"Characterizing natural gas as green energy is regressive and a fallacy," said Cinnamon Carlarne, the Robert J. Lynn Chair in Law at the Ohio State University. "Natural gas is not green energy. The labelling is a little bit Orwellian."
== =
lotta lunacy out of midwest 521? illinois?
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/dewine-2653101245/
vax lotto
---
---
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.
READ MORE: [Kevin McCarthy cites disputed fentanyl overdose report to push anti-immigration rhetoric
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.
READ MORE: House Republican asks if women give birth to turtles or tacos
---
https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/far-right-trump-supporters-in-ohio-want-to-impeach-gop-gov-dewine-for-trying-to-prevent-the-spread-of/
==
Koch-Backed Work Rule Requirements Suffer Setback at Hands of GOP Governor
By Don Wiener | March 25th, 2020 at 11:39 AM (CDT)
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine asks Trump administration to drop work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
==
==
icn 719
Ohio Governor Signs a Coal and Nuclear Bailout at Expense of Renewable Energy
BY: DAN GEARINO
Ohio homeowners and businesses are now stuck paying more to keep old, uneconomical power plants running, and money-saving energy efficiency programs will likely disappear.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23072019/ohio-coal-nuclear-bailout-law-signed-cuts-renewable-energy-efficiency-programs-governor-dewine
Opponents fear the law will send the growing wind and solar industry to neighboring states while Ohio homeowners are stuck boosting old, uneconomical power plants.
BY DAN GEARINO
JUL 26, 2019
Updated July 26 with FirstEnergy Solutions announcing that, with the state bailout for its nuclear plants, the utility will now have funding to keep an aging coal plant also running.
In a year when several states have taken big steps to embrace a future that runs on renewable energy, Ohio is taking a leap in the opposite direction.
The Ohio legislature passed a measure Tuesday that cuts renewable energy and energy efficiency programs while adding subsidies for nuclear and coal-fired power plants—a policy cocktail that opponents say is backward-looking and harmful to the economy, consumers and the environment.
Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed the bill into law within hours.
Opponents were unable to match the political power of FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the state's two nuclear plants, and its allies.
While much of the debate was about nuclear power, the law may end up functioning as more of a coal bailout.
On Friday, FirstEnergy Solutions said it had decided to cancel plans to close the W.H. Sammis coal-fired power plant, an eastern Ohio plant that has been described as a "super-polluter." The plant, previously scheduled to shut down in 2022, is not covered by the bailout law, but the windfall from the bailout money is improving the company's finances enough to make moves unrelated to the nuclear plants.
The new law is in line with Ohio's recent history of hostility to renewable energy, while also making the state an outlier as several other states have increased their support for renewable energy, including plans to move to 100 percent carbon-free or renewable electricity, most recently in Maineand New York.
"This is one of the worst pieces of energy related legislation we've seen," said Dan Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
His group was one of many across the business and political spectrum that fought the bill, a rare moment in which environmental advocates such as the Sierra Club were on the same side as the American Petroleum Institute.
"We are bailing out a corporation, a failing corporation," while harming the growing wind and solar industries, said Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat.
He said the legislation would steer solar and wind investment away from Ohio and toward neighboring states such as Michigan. Other states, including South Carolinaand Georgia, are being much more forward thinking about renewable energy, he said.
The Ohio Senate passed the bill 19-12 last week, but the House put off its vote until Tuesday because several lawmakers were absent and the bill would not have passed without them.
DeWine's office went so far as to approve the use of state aircraft to pick up two lawmakers from a conference in Chicago so they would be in Columbus for the Tuesday vote, though that flight plan was eventually canceledwhen the lawmakers determined they could drive back.
The Debate Blurred Party Lines
Supporters said the bailout was necessary to preserve some 4,300 jobs and to intervene in an electricity market that they say does not adequately value nuclear power.
FirstEnergy Solutions, which is in bankruptcy protection, had said its nuclear plants were not profitable enough to continue to operate and would need to close in 2020 and 2021 unless they received more support—about $150 million per year. However, the company has not provided the public with evidence of the plants' financial condition.
The bailout is indirectly helping the Sammis coal plant. Last month, FirstEnergy Solutions CEO John Judge spoke at a public forum in Steubenville, Ohio, about the connection between the nuclear aid, which at that point had not become law, and the old coal-fired plant that his company had intended to shut down.
"House Bill 6 is really designed to help our nuclear plants and all the money from that that came to us would go to those nuclear plants, but at the same time it would make our company economically healthy enough that we would be able to look at other investments like investing in the Sammis plant," he told WTOV television in Steubenville. Three days after the bill was signed, the company announced it would do just that.
Other states—such as Illinois, New Jersey and New York—have also subsidized their nuclear plants, but they did so as part of larger plans that also supported renewable energy. The states were attempting to retain nuclear as a source of carbon-free energy as part of policies that would help move away from fossil fuels and address climate change.
Only Ohio moved to give aid to nuclear and coal plants while cutting renewable energy programs.
The Ohio debate blurred partisan lines. Some Democrats supported the bill because of a desire to retain union jobs at the endangered plants. Some Republicans opposed it because they don't like the idea of subsidies or have concerns that nuclear aid will hurt plants that run on coal or natural gas.
Sen. Joe Uecker, a Republican from the Cincinnati area, said during the Senate debate that the bill would harm competing power plants and reduce the growth in jobs in clean energy industries.
"Investments in Ohio will start disappearing faster than a snow cone in Phoenix," he said.
Victory for FirstEnergy, Politician It Supported
The new law is a victory for House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican who rose to his position in January by ousting the incumbent Republican. He made it a top priority to pass nuclear plant subsidies, following a 2018 campaign cycle in which FirstEnergy—the Akron-based utility that until recently owned FirstEnergy Solutions—spent heavily to support him.
This support included donations to Republican primary candidates who had pledged to back Householder's bid for speaker and have been leading supporters of the bill.
The bill was initially proposed as a clean air program that would provide financial help to nuclear plants and some renewable energy plants. As the bill moved through the political process, the idea of a clean air policy was discarded and replaced with amendments that undercut clean air instead.
Among the new provisions were subsidies for two coal-fired power plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp., one in Ohio and one in Indiana, and both built in the 1950s. This is unrelated to FirstEnergy Solutions' Sammis plant, which does not receive any direct benefits from the law.
The new law will add two new monthly fees to utility bills across the state. Households will pay up to $1.50 per month to help keep uncompetitive coal plants running, plus up to 85 cents per month into a fund that will provide tens of millions of dollars to support the nuclear plants (businesses would pay more on both charges).
Cuts to Efficiency, Renewable Energy Programs
Much of the opposition to the bill stemmed from lawmakers' decisions to help pay for the subsidies by reducing charges for programs that support renewable energy and energy efficiency—programs that reduce greenhouse gases and help to lower customers' power bills.
Under the law DeWine signed, utilities will now only be required to get 8.5 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2026—down from a target of 12.5 percent. At one point, a version of the bill would have eliminated the renewable energy standard entirely. Ohio's renewable energy standard is already modest compared to most states.
The new law also freezes annual increases in energy efficiency standards at the end of 2020, meaning utilities will no longer need to operate programs that help customers reduce their energy use. Consumer advocates say the cuts to energy efficiency are especially harmful because the programs lead to savings that exceed their costs. The net savings were $5.1 billion from 2009 to 2017.
As the bill moved toward passing, opponents spoke about next steps, including how to make this an issue in 2020 legislative elections and the possibility of sponsoring a statewide referendum to overturn the future law.
Bill Siderewicz, president of Clean Energy Future, a company that has developed natural gas power plants in Ohio, has hinted at a referendum. He opposes the bill because he thinks it gives nuclear plants an advantage over natural gas.
"The simple answer is that poll after poll shows that voters are AGAINST utilities' BAILOUTS in Ohio!!!" he wrote in an email before the Senate vote.
PUBLISHED UNDER:
==
==
illinois goes after coal ash arsenic while this pow:
trifecta
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052019/ohio-nuclear-bailout-coal-plants-kills-renewable-energy-efficiency-standards
new
Ohio’s Nuclear Bailout Plan Balloons to Embrace Coal (while Killing Renewables Rules)
While other states are embracing renewable energy, Ohio is heading in the opposite direction. A bill passed this week by the Ohio House would subsidize nuclear and coal power while cutting state support for renewable energy and energy efficiency, with the utilities' customers footing the bill.
Advocates and analysts are trying to make sense of a plan that seems to defy political and economic logic: It would support uneconomical power plants by increasing costs for businesses and homeowners, both with new charges on their bills and through the cancellation of programs that help them save money on energy.
The measure now heads to the Ohio Senate, and the idea of a nuclear bailout has the support of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. If it becomes law, it would mean Ohio is decisively turning away from policies that aid the transition to renewable energy, said Kit Kennedy, senior director of the climate and clean energy program for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Ohio is moving in an unprecedented and troubling direction with this bill, which is quite dramatically different from how other states are handling similar issues," she said.
The state's renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, already weakened once since becoming law in 2008, have been under continual attack from Republican lawmakers who say they oppose mandates and subsidies. Yet that's what they now want to offer coal and nuclear.
Clean energy advocates are pinning their hopes on the idea that the Ohio Senate, which, like the House, is controlled by Republicans, will change the bill. DeWine indicated that the bill is a "work in progress," telling Gongwer News Service on Thursday that he wants to find a way to support nuclear and allow wind and solar to grow.
Ohio would be the fifth state to subsidize nuclear power plants that otherwise might close for financial reasons, following Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. The difference is that the other four passed nuclear aid as part of a package that included support for renewable energy, part of a larger strategy to promote carbon-free electricity generation....
---
==
fetal heart bill?
---
firstenergy nuke power long list of debtor includes black diamond safari military cop gear bankruptcy
==
==
In Ohio, Republican Mike DeWine, the state attorney general, defeated Democrat Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general and the first director of the Federal Consumer Protection Bureau. Cordray's loss is a blow to clean energy advocates who had hoped to see a counterweight to a Republican-controlled legislature that has been hostile to renewable energy.
---
https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-republican-party-has-abandoned-reality
no lnx vid
Here's Why the Republican Party Has Abandoned Reality
It's Trump's GOP now.
By David Akadjian / Daily Kos September 16, 2018, 7:58 AM GMT
This year, the Republican candidate for governor in Georgia was decided in a special runoff election between Brian Kemp and Casey Cagle, the top two finishers in the Republican primary. Before the runoff election, Casey Cagle was secretly recorded talking about the craziness of the Georgia Republican primary. He said:
:{:{}:
}:
The problem is in a primary—and you and I are just talking off-the-record frank—they don’t give a shit about those things. Okay. In the general election, they care about it. Okay. But they don’t care about it in a primary. This primary felt like it was who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck, and who could be the craziest.
:{:{}:
}:
Kemp quickly pounced on these remarks and used them to win the runoff by 40 points—which, ironically, validated Cagle’s remarks.
Here in Ohio, I saw the same thing in our race for governor. The entire race was about who was the most conservative. Mary Taylor called Mike DeWine a “liberal” and DeWine said Taylor was a criminal, so “lock her up.”
You’ve probably seen something similar in a race where you live. Conspiracy theorists are falling out of trees in Republican primaries.
So why is this going, on and what can we learn from it?
Politicians are cowards
Almost a year before the 2016 election, Devin Nunes spoke with The New Yorker about then-House Speaker John Boehner’s ouster.
Nunes told the author that one of the biggest changes he’s seen since his arrival in 2002 is the rise of online media outlets and for-profit groups that spread bad or even false information:
:{:{}:
}:
I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation.Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head.
:{:{}:
}:
Today, the calls and emails are 90 percent about the bad information and conspiracy theories, and only a small percentage are about things that are actually true.
Of course today, we know Nunes as the point man from the House Intelligence Committee who keeps trying to push the lie that it was Hillary Clinton who actually colluded with Russia. Nunes is also a global warming denier even as Fresno, the largest city in his California district, experienced a record consecutive days with highs that topped 100 degrees.
Nunes is now one of the leaders in disinformation.
Why?
Because Fox News and other right-wing conspiracy media outlets have made him famous. His fame has brought in $7.4 million in campaign donations, the most of any California Republican. This is also three to seven times any previous amount he’s raised.
So … conspiracy away!
In three years Nunes went from Freedom Party critic to one of the lead conspiracy theorists in Congress. Along the way, he threw out every principle he once might have had.
He’s not a leader. He’s a Fox News puppet.
[vid]
Devin Nunes calls his own paper, The Sacramento Bee, ‘fake news’
It’s important to understand that this is not just true for Nunes, but for most politicians
It’s easy for liberals to see this with Devin Nunes because he’s a lying conspiracy theorist Republican.
The mistake we often make, however, is seeing Democratic politicians differently. They’re not conspiracy theorists like Nunes. But they also don’t tend to be leaders like we want them to be. They have to get elected, too. So they will do what it takes to get elected.They will champion causes that are hot-button issues in the media. They will talk about what they think they can talk about in order to win. If an issue is going to hurt them politically, they may avoid it.
The simple model for what they’re doing looks like this:
Social change -> political change -> policy change
Social change is cultural change. It is what is popular in the public mind. Political change is winning elections. And policy change is when politicians write legislation.
Politicians will do what those who get them elected want.
If we look at someone saying this on the Democratic side, it looks like Barack Obama in 2009 talking about health care. Obama took a page out of President Franklin Roosevelt’s playbook. FDR once met with a group of activists who wanted support for new, bold legislation. After listening to their arguments, he then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.”
===
https://www.ecowatch.com/ohio-epa-rover-pipeline-2488296855.html
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked the state attorney general's office Wednesday to hold the owners of the troubled Rover natural gas pipeline responsible for $2.3 million dollars in fines. Rover leaked more than 2 million gallons of drilling mud into protected Ohio wetlands this spring, leading the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to order a halt to construction.
The Ohio EPA claim that while Rover's owners, Energy Transfer Partners—which also owns the Dakota Access Pipeline—has done sufficient cleanup and monitoring at impacted sites, the company has refused to pay multiple fines. Over the last two years, the pipeline has racked up more "noncompliance incidents" than any other interstate gas pipeline.
a deeper dive:
Columbus Dispatch, AP, WOSU, Cleve Scene
==
---
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/06/liberal_group_says_mike_dewine.html
koff by
SHINGTON -- Several times now, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has joined other Republican state attorneys general in suing the Obama administration in efforts to derail federal environmental rules.
At the same time, DeWine -- a possible contender for Ohio governor in 2018-- has collected large campaign donations from coal companies, electric utilities and others pushing back against the environmental rules. So-called polluting industries and their employees have donated more than $335,000 to DeWine since 2010, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Does this put Ohio's attorney general in the pocket of polluting industries?
The liberal group Americans United for Change says yes. Americans United, part of a broad network of activists who supports Democratic causes, included DeWine in a list of state attorneys general who regularly fight President Barack Obama on environmental rules while raising money from industries with a financial stake in winning those fights.
Americans United released the information today because it is the second anniversary of the U.S. EPA's proposal for what became the Clean Power Plan, which, if the courts don't block it, will require power plants to burn less coal as they generate electricity.
What's the beef, and why today?
To environmentalists, the Clean Power Plan is a necessary step to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Supporters say the rule and financial incentives should spur growth in the already expanding alternative-energy and energy-efficiency industries, creating jobs. And the rule will prevent premature deaths and asthma attacks.
But to many Republicans, especially in states like Ohio that rely heavily on coal for electricity, the rule is a step toward higher energy costs and will cause job losses in the Appalachian region, while doing little about climate change.
Americans United not only doesn't buy that argument. It also says that while Republican officeholders complain and bring federal lawsuits, they line their own campaign coffers.
Republican attorneys general have received $2.8 million from "polluters and energy interests" in recent years, and the Republican Attorneys General Association has received $1.9 million for those interests since 2014, Americans United said in a report titled "Polluter Impunity."
DeWine's share since 2010: $335,763.
What's DeWine say?
DeWine's office said the purported linkage between his legal positions and campaign donations is unfair.
It is true that DeWine has filed lawsuits on behalf of Ohio, as did other attorneys general for their states, over Obama's rules to:
- curtail coal use in electric-generating plants (the case is working its way through federal courts)
- cut mercury emission from the plants as well (the attorneys general won on procedural grounds onlybut might be unable to stop the final rules)
- restrict development along waterways, including some marshes and streams, unless such plans pass an environmental review first (the attorneys general won).
Obama's EPA also wants to clarify that emissions controls on cars made for the road cannot be modified, even if used for off-road racing -- a pending rule DeWinewants nixed.
DeWine's argument on the environment is no different than the one he raised in cases fighting Obama's immigration and health insurance policies, spokesman Dan Tierney said. (Obama won the health insurance case and a Supreme Courtdecision on immigration is expected this month.) That is, DeWine is fighting what he says is an illegal White House overreach of constitutional power.
"We're seeing it pop up time and time again," Tierney said. "And the attorney general has been very clear about this: There are powers left to the states."
Is there another claim besides money?
Besides noting the campaign donations DeWine has received from such sources as executives at the Boich Companies, Murray Energy and FirstEnergy, Americans United had another criticism of DeWine: He seems awfully close with the industries whose positions he supports.
Using public records laws, Americans United obtained emails between DeWine and interests with a stake in fighting Obama's rules.
One such email provided details of an appearance DeWine was to make before an Ohio Coal Association luncheon in 2015. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman was to speak as well. In an email from the group's president, DeWine was asked through a top aide to speak about the Clean Power Plan, the waterway rule and "anything else with coal he is seeing."
Christian Palich, president of the coal association, added in the email that this would be a "closed press event in case you were wondering, (because) we want people to be able to speak freely."
Is that all?
Another email to DeWine, from last August, contained a critical analysis of the Clean Power Plan and what the authors saw as the EPA's poor understanding of the way the power grid and regional electricity markets operate. The analysis made critical points that could be used in a legal or public relations case.
The email had been circulated among four people who work for the energy industry, including Matt Evans, president of external relations for Boich Companies. It was sent to DeWine by Mike Dawson, who does public relations consulting for the industry and was DeWine's communications director when DeWine was a U.S. senator.
DeWine received it in his personal email account. He then forwarded it from his iPad to members of his staff.
What's that prove?
Is this a smoking gun?
That might depend on the angle from which you view it. Critics such as Americans United say all that money, and the level of familiarity and information being exchanged, went beyond what was required for the attorney general to do his job.
"When an attorney general chooses to serve as part of dirty energy's unofficial defense team, who is left looking out for the public interests?" said Americans United president Brad Woodhouse. "If you're a public servant like DeWine and find yourself delivering 'closed press' speeches at Coal Association events while standing in the way of a plan that will save thousands of lives and leave millions of Americans less susceptible to air-pollution related illnesses like lung cancer to asthma attacks in children, maybe it's time to consider a clean break from your dirty energy friends."
Those close to DeWine said that's a stretch.
Dawson, who sent the industry-related email to DeWine, said he doesn't even remember it. Dawson said he's "never talked to Mike DeWine at all" about the issue.
As for the donations, many of them came from Ohio executives at coal- or energy-related companies that donate widely to politicians. They tend to favor Republicans, who in turn support the industry's low-regulation priorities.
The assertion that DeWine takes his positions because he wants to help polluters "is false on its face," Tierney said. The critics might be talking about pollution, but "we're talking about federalism. That's the underlying issue for our office."
==
bs
Boich Companies was founded in 1963 in the heart of Ohio coal country. For the next three decades, the company maintained mining operations in southeast Ohio.
In the mid-1990s, Boich Companies sold these operations and moved to its present headquarters in Columbus to focus on the coal marketing and trading business.
In the early 2000s, the company acquired mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky. The company grew these operations till 2005, at which time they were sold to a private equity group.
Today, Boich Companies maintains a coal marketing and trading operation, moving coal from coal producers to investor owned utilities
==
PR bs press repease:
http://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Media/News-Releases/October-2015/Attorney-General-DeWine-Files-Challenge-to-Clean-P
Attorney General DeWine Files Challenge to Clean Power Plan
10/23/2015
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, along with attorneys general and regulators from 23 other states, today filed a legal challenge to the sweeping “Power Plan” rule imposed by the Obama Administration. The rule, announced earlier in 2015 but finally published in the Federal Register this morning, was promulgated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
“The so-called ‘Power Plan’ hits Ohio hard. It will dramatically increase Ohioans’ electric rates while at the same time offering less reliable service and few tangible environmental benefits,” said Attorney General DeWine. “Once again, the Obama Administration has imposed another rule that vastly oversteps the authority granted by law. I have filed legal challenges to such rules in the past, and I believe today’s challenge of this illegal rule will also succeed against this power grab.”
The rule purports to require states to reorganize their energy economies in order to reduce carbon emissions from electricity-generating plants. Ohioans will be required to slash their consumption of electricity from these sources by 37 percent below 2005 levels over the next 15 years. The rule is estimated to cost over $25 billion annually, and these costs will ultimately be paid by consumers.
The rule will also disproportionately affect coal power producers, likely causing job losses in the coal industry.
Currently, Ohio families and businesses get well over half of their electricity from coal.
States have argued to the EPA for more than a year that the rule is illegal for multiple reasons. In particular, the EPA lacks authority under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to force States to fundamentally restructure their electric grids by requiring them to use less coal-fired energy and build costly and less reliable wind and solar facilities. As a result, the rule effectively requires a “cap-and-trade” system without statutory authority and that had been specifically rejected by a Democratically-controlled Congress. The rule is also illegal because it seeks to require States to regulate coal-fired power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act even though the EPA already regulates those same plants under Section 112 of the Act. Double regulation is prohibited by the Clean Air Act.
In addition to Ohio, the states challenging the rule include Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
–30–
Media Contacts
Dan Tierney: 614-466-3840
Lisa Hackley: 614-466-3840
---
Ohio Attorney General DeWine speaking about the Clean Power Plan at an Ohio Coal Association "closed press event" to allow him to “speak freely” o In August 2015, Michael Murry , the Deputy Director of Policy and Public Affairs for Ohio Attorney General DeWine, emailed Ohio Coal Association (OCA) President Christian R. Palich to “touch base about next week’s OCA annual meeting luncheon” where Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine was scheduled to give a speech. Palich indicated that he planned for Ohio Attorney General DeWine to speak before U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) about the “court cases against Waters of the US and Clean Power Plan…and anything else with coal he is seeing…” Palich also wrote that the event would be a “closed press event” because they “[wanted] people to be able to speak freely.” Ohio Attorney General DeWine receiving anti-Clean Power Plan emails at a personal email address, which he forwarded to senior members of his staff at their government email address. o Four industry representatives, including Ohio Attorney Mike DeWine former Communications Director Mike Dawson, exchanged emails expressing opposition to the Clean Power Plan.
Mike Dawson forwarded this exchange to Mike DeWine at his personal email address. The four people on this exchange were Sam Randazzo, Matt Evans, Greg Browning, and Mike Dawson. Randazzo is Member-in-charge at McNees, Wallace & Nurick, specializing in energy regulation, Matt Evans is the President of External Relations for Boich Companies, a privately held coal marketing and mining company, Greg Browning is the Owner of Capital Partners, a government relations firm,and Mike Dawson was the Communications Director for Attorney General DeWine when he was a Senator and, more recently, has been a Lobbyist linked to energy companies. Mike Dawson forwarded the message directly to Attorney General DeWine’s personal email address “mike@silverdollarbaseball.com.” DeWine forwarded the email to senior members of his staff including his Director of Major Litigation the State Solicitor
==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Attorney_General
Richard Michael "Mike" DeWine (born January 5, 1947) is an American lawyer and Republican Party politician from Cedarville, Ohio. DeWine is serving his second term as Ohio Attorney General, a seat he won election to in 2010 by defeating incumbent Richard Cordray. DeWine was sworn in on January 10, 2011.
DeWine is a former United States Senator, elected to replace the retiring Howard Metzenbaum in 1994 and winning two terms. He served alongside John Glenn as the junior Senator from Ohio from 1995 until 1999 and then became the senior Senator when former Ohio governor George Voinovich was sworn in. DeWine had served as Voinovich's lieutenant governor from the time Voinovich was first elected in 1991 until 1994.
Prior to his being nominated as Voinovich's running mate in the 1990 election, DeWine served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio's 7th Congressional District for four consecutive terms beginning in 1983. He also served as an Ohio state senator.
Contents
Personal life
Born in Springfield, Ohio, to Jean and Richard L. DeWine,[1] DeWine lives in Cedarville, Ohio but grew up in neighboring Yellow Springs, Ohio. DeWine earned his Bachelor of Science degree in education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1969 and a Juris Doctor from Ohio Northern University College of Law in 1972.
He and his wife Frances have had eight children, one of whom died in an automobile accident in 1993.[2] Current Hamilton County, Ohio Common Pleas Court Judge R. Patrick DeWine is Mike DeWine's son. Former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine (R-Fairborn) is DeWine's second cousin.
Political career
At age 25, DeWine started working as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Greene County, Ohio, and in 1976 was elected County Prosecutor, serving for four years.[3][4] In 1980 he was elected to the Ohio State Senate and served one two-year term.[4]
Two years later, U.S. Representative Bud Brown of Ohio's 7th congressional district retired after 26 years in Congress; his father, Clarence Brown, Sr., had held the seat for 26 years before that. DeWine won the Republican nomination, assuring him of election in November. He was reelected three more times from this district, which stretches from his home in Springfield to the Columbus suburbs. He ran unopposed in 1986 during what is regarded as a bad year for Republicans nationally.
DeWine gave up his seat in 1990 to run for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio as the running mate of George Voinovich. The Voinovich-DeWine ticket was easily elected.
In 1992, DeWine unsuccessfully ran against the former astronaut and incumbent Senator John Glenn. His campaign used the phrase, "What on earth has John Glenn done?"[5]
In 1994, DeWine ran for the United States Senate, defeating prominent attorney Joel Hyatt (the son-in-law of the then-incumbent U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum) by a solid 14-point margin. DeWine was reelected in 2000, defeating gunshow promoter Ronald Dickson (161,185 votes, or 12.44%) and former U.S. Rep. Frank Cremeans (104,219 votes, or 8.05%)in the primary[6] and Ted Celeste (brother of former Ohio Gov. Dick Celeste) in the general election.
DeWine was defeated in the 2006 midterm elections by Democrat Sherrod Brown, receiving 905,644 fewer votes in 2006 than he received in 2000.[7][8]
On July 22, 2009, DeWine announced his intention to run for Attorney General of the State of Ohio. On November 2, 2010, DeWine was elected as the new Attorney General, defeating Democratic incumbent Richard Cordray. As attorney general of Ohio, DeWine sent letters to drugstore chains, encouraging them to discontinue the sale of tobacco products.[9] On November 4, 2014, DeWine was re-elected as Attorney General by defeating challenger, David A. Pepper. DeWine carried 84 out of Ohio's 88 counties.
Legislation
DeWine was the initial sponsor of the Drug-Free Century Act in 1999.[10]
Legal challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
On January 26, 2015, DeWine challenged the "Transitional Reinsurance Program" of the ACA of 2010 to collect mandatory monetary "contributions" from State and local governments[11][12][13][14] in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (2:15-cv-00321-ALM-NMK).
Political positions
Highway Safety
As U.S. Senator, DeWine was behind the move to make 0.08% the national maximum blood-alcohol limit, and to require reporting of vehicle-related deaths on private property like parking lots and driveways.[15] He sponsored legislation on determining when aging tires become unsafe.[16]
Social issues
DeWine is opposed to legal abortion. In the Senate, he was the lead sponsor of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.[17]
DeWine opposes same-sex marriage and sponsored the Federal Marriage Amendment but opposed State Issue 1, Ohio's constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman.
In 2004 DeWine co-sponsored an amendment to renew the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.[18] He was one of only two Republican senators to vote against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act ,[19] which banned lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers for criminal misuse of their products. In the 2006 election cycle, DeWine was the first senatorial candidate to be endorsed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and displayed that endorsement on his campaign webpage.[20] Furthermore, DeWine authored Senate Bill 954, to extend lifetime bans on gun ownership on citizens who happened to get a conviction in a foreign country, which carried a jail term of more than a year. That bill only garnered the endorsement of one other Senator, Dianne Feinstein of California.[21]
After President George W. Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers on October 3, 2005, for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, DeWine said "I think the fact she doesn't have judicial experience will add to the diversity of the Supreme Court.... There is no reason everyone has to have that same [judicial] background."[22] Opposition from conservative groups unhappy with Miers' resume ultimately sank her nomination.
DeWine sponsored the "Stars on Cars" legislation, which appeared in the 2005 highway bill. The rule requires that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration star safety rating information be displayed on part of the window sticker on new cars beginning with the 2008 model year.
Senate committees
DeWine sat on both the Senate Judiciary and Select Intelligence committees.
Post-Senate career
DeWine accepted positions teaching government courses at Cedarville University, Ohio Northern University and Miami University. In 2007, he joined the law firm Keating Muething & Klekamp as corporate investigations group co-chair.[23] He also advised the Ohio campaign of John McCain's 2008 presidential bid.[24]
On November 2, 2010, DeWine was elected Attorney General of the state of Ohio, defeating incumbent Richard Cordray (D) 48%-46%.[25]
In the 2012 Republican presidential primary, DeWine endorsed Tim Pawlenty, then endorsed Mitt Romney after Pawlenty dropped out of the race. On February 17, 2012, DeWine announced he was retracting his endorsement of Mitt Romney and endorsed Rick Santorum. DeWine said, "To be elected president, you have to do more than tear down your opponents. You have to give the American people a reason to vote for you, a reason to hope, a reason to believe that under your leadership, America will be better. Rick Santorum has done that. Sadly, Governor Romney has not."[26]
==
=
ay of trying to negotiate his resignation, Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann said he not quitting today.
"At this point, that's not what I'm going to do," Dann told a Plain Dealer reporter.
He declined to elaborate.
Sources said Dann, a Democrat, had been contemplating an announcement today in an attempt to head off action by House Republicans that would have initiated an investigation of his office by the Ohio Inspector General.
Dann has faced intense pressure from fellow Democrats and Republican critics who said he was not fit to continue as the state's top lawyer.
Lieutenant Gov. Lee Fisher met with Dann today at Dann's request, said Keith Dailey, a spokesman for Gov. Ted Strickland.
Dailey said Fisher urged Dann to resign. Dailey would not comment further on the discussion between the two office holders.
House Democrats this morning filed articles of impeachment against Dann, accusing him of misconduct and malfeasance in office.
Ohio Democratic and Republican leaders had called for Dann to resign in the wake of a sexual harassment investigation in his office that concluded earlier this month with two top managers being fired and two other employees resigning. Dann, 46, also admitted to an extramarital affair with a staff member, and admitted that he wasn't prepared for the job of attorney general when he took office in 2007.
Strickland and other top Democrats had threatened to have Dann impeached immediately if he didn't step down. Dann has stood his ground, refusing to resign and maintaining he had done nothing to warrant impeachment.
But House Democrats, led by Minority Leader Joyce Beatty of Columbus, said they had found nine acts of misconduct by Dann that collectively are worthy of impeachment. They based their filings on sworn testimony taken for the recently concluded internal investigation.
"We have identified a pattern of misconduct that we believe rises to the level of impeachable offenses," said three Democratic House officials Beatty appointed to study whether Dann could be impeached.
The nine articles of impeachment included accusations that Dann obstructed the internal investigation, gave misleading statements, committed acts of gross neglect of duty and committed acts of gross immorality.
Other articles accused Dann of: neglecting to perform the official duties of his office, failing to exercise care in administering the office, failing to ensure safe use and security of state property, failure to investigate improper use of state property, and for not knowing state property was being misused for personal business.
The accusations all hinged on the fallout from claims by two 26-year-old women against their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, who was director of general services and Dann's close friend. The women, Vanessa Stout and Cindy Stankoski, accused Gutierrez of pressuring them repeatedly for sex.
Gutierrez, 50, was fired after the internal report, released May 2, concluded he harassed employees, threatened subordinates and used state property for his personal business, among other claims.
Gutierrez and Dann lived together, along with Dann's former Communications Director Leo Jennings III, in a Columbus apartment when they were away from their Youngstown-area homes.
Jennings, 53, was also fired on May 2 after the investigation concluded he tried to persuade another worker to lie to investigators.
Gutierrez has also been accused of wrecking two state vehicles, one while allegedly drunk, and using state computers to run his private construction company, all allegations that the State Highway Patrol is investigating.
Democrats have said Dann knew or should have known that Gutierrez and others were making a mockery of the office and done something about it.
But while Gutierrez, Jennings, former Chief of Staff Edgar Simpson and former scheduler Jessica Utovich, the 28-year-old woman Dann was linked to, all lost their jobs in the wake of the investigation, Dann had vowed to stay on. He admitted to running his office poorly but said things had been improving under his leadership. Dann also had said admitting his affair to his wife, Alyssa Lenhoff, was punishment enough for him.
Dann, a former state senator, was elected in 2006 in a near-sweep of statewide offices by Democrats. A vocal critic of the state investment scandal that tarnished Republican Gov. Bob Taft's administration, Dann had vowed to "end corruption and bring accountability and openness to the office" --> Cordray?
---
==