COLUMBUS – “This is a sad day for Ohio.”
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and House Minority Leader Emiilia Sykes-Strong (D-Akron) could agree on that in their reactions to the arrest of the state‘s third most powerful officeholder.
Top Republicans, including DeWine, and Sykes-Strong and other Democrats are calling for Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to resign after his arrest Tuesday on bribery and racketeering charges.
Meanwhile, two Democratic lawmakers are seeking to have the law at the center of the scandal overturned.
“Because of the nature of these charges, it will be impossible for Speaker Householder to effectively lead the Ohio House of Representatives; therefore, I am calling on Speaker Householder to resign immediately,” DeWine said in a statement released by his office.
“This is a sad day for Ohio,” he said.
Democrats joined the chorus of those calling on Householder to step down and immediately began fundraising pitches to solicit money in races where GOP candidates may be newly vulnerable.
“This is a sad day for Ohio,” Sykes-Strong echoed.
“As Ohioans are grappling with a public health and economic crisis like we haven’t seen in generations, this is an unnecessary distraction from the very important business facing our citizens. Because of this, we demand the immediate resignation of Larry Householder as Speaker of the House and implore our Republican colleagues to announce a new leader for this body as soon as possible,” she said.
Read statements from other state leaders on Householder’s arrest.
Federal prosecutors said that Householder and four others, including a former state GOP chairman, perpetrated a $60 million federal bribery scheme connected to a taxpayer-funded bailout of Ohio’s two nuclear power plants.
“The conspiracy was to pass and maintain a $1.5 billion bailout in return for $61 million dollars in dark money,” U.S. Attorney David DeVillers said.
The charges allege that Householder and his associates funneled bribes through a non-profit organization called Generation Now, which did not have to reveal its donors’ identities. The money went to fund efforts to pass the legislation and then block efforts to recall it.
Representative Michael Skindell (D-Lakewood) and Michael O’Brien (D-Warren) Wednesday announced plans to introduce a bill that would repeal the 2019 law which requires most Ohio utility customers to pay more per month to support the two failing nuclear plants.
DeVillers says the ploy was probably the largest bribery scheme ever perpetrated against the state of Ohio.
“This was a quid pro quo; this was pay-to-play,” DeVillers said.
Householder, 61, of Glenford, was one of the driving forces behind the nuclear plants’ financial rescue that will direct over $150 million a year through 2026 to the plants near Cleveland and Toledo while adding to Ohio electric customers’ bills.
Also charged in the indictment were Mathew Borges, 48, of Bexley, former chair of the Ohio Republican Party; Jeffrey Longstreth, 44, of Columbus, Householder’s longtime campaign and political strategist; Neil Clark, 67, of Columbus, a lobbyist who previously served as budget director for the Ohio Republican Caucus; and Juan Cespedes, 40, of Columbus, a lobbyist.
According to the 80-page indictment, Householder in 2017 began receiving quarterly $250,000 payments from the energy companies into the bank account of Generation Now, which supplied millions of dollars to support Householder’s political bid to become Speaker, to support House candidates they believed would back Householder, and for their own personal benefit.
Householder also received more than $400,000 in personal benefits as a result of the payments into Generation Now, including funds to settle a personal lawsuit, to pay for costs associated with his residence in Florida, and to pay off thousands of dollars of credit card debt.
The defendants allegedly paid $15,000 to an individual to provide insider information about the ballot initiative to repeal H.B. 6, the legislation that allowed the bailout and offered to pay signature collectors for the ballot initiative $2,500 cash and plane fare to stop gathering signatures.
The charge iare punishable by up to 20 years in prison.