UPFRONT ON SEPT. 29, BARRING unforeseen catastrophe or readily predictable coronavirus-related issues, Joe Biden will debate President Donald Trump in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Health Education Campus of the Cleveland Clinic (HEC). It’ll be the first televised presidential debate of the 2020 general election cycle. The Commission on Presidential Debates announced early this week that the University of Notre Dame had withdrawn from hosting the first debate and that Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic had stepped in to fill the void. CWRU and the Clinic, who are collaborating on the hosting duties, also collaborated on the HEC, “where students in medicine, dentistry, nursing and related fields come together to learn and practice teambased care in simulated settings and, later, at actual clinical sites.” It opened last summer. The debate, like those that will follow, is scheduled to run 90 minutes and will be televised on all the major networks. The nation will watch with rage or apathy. A live audience may or may not be present depending on future COVID data. Local protests can be expected. -Vince Grzegorek
Speaker of the House Arrested, Charges Allege Biggest Racketeering Scandal in Ohio History The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbus last week announced criminal charges against Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, his aide Jeff Longstreth, lobbyist and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges and others. The racketeering charges concern almost $61 million in payments related to a controversial energy bailout the Ohio General Assembly passed last year and was described as the largest racketeering scandal in Ohio’s history. FBI agents arrested Householder, Borges, Longstreth, FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes and lobbyist Neil Clark on the charges, which stem from lobbying activity around HB6. That bill funnels millions of taxpayer dollars to two
Photo by Emanuel Wallace
TRUMP. BIDEN. CLEVELAND. DEBATE.
faltering nuclear power plants and two coal-powered plants, while also rolling back the state’s renewable energy standards. An unusual combination of fiscal conservatives, oil and gas companies, environmental groups and others decried HB6 which entailed payments by ratepayers of $150 million per year between 2021 and 2027 to Energy Harbor (formerly FirstEnergy Solutions), a bankrupt subsidiary holding two nuclear power plants — Perry Nuclear Power Plant outside of Cleveland and DavisBesse Nuclear Power Station outside of Toledo — owned by Akron-based parent company FirstEnergy Corp. The federal affidavit detailed the complex system by which Householder and others received money from the nuclear plants’ owners and its subsidiaries, called “Company A” in the filing, to secure the House Speakership for Householder, to pass HB6 and to enrich Householder and his allies in the process. That system involved an organization called Generation Now, which investigators allege
Householder controlled. “From March 2017 to March 2020, Householder’s Enterprise received roughly $60 million from Company A’s entities,” the charges read. “An exchange for payments from Company A, Householder’s Enterprise helped pass House Bill 6, legislation described by an Enterprise member as a billion-dollar ‘bailout’ that saved from closure two failing nuclear power plants in Ohio affiliated with Company A. The Enterprise then worked corruptly to ensure that HB6 went into effect by defeating a ballot initiative.” That ballot initiative sought the recall of HB6. It was met with millions in ads and counter-petition efforts from pro-HB6 groups — some with alleged ties to Householder. As an effort by anti-HB6 group Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts to get the 265,744 valid signatures necessary to land a referendum on the state ballot kicked off last year, a group called Ohioans for Energy Security fired a salvo back at the law’s critics in the form of a 60-second commercial that began
running in late August on broadcast and cable TV and radio. That ad accused natural gas interests of being behind the opposition to HB6 and further asserted that those interests represented an attempt by the Chinese government to take over Ohio’s energy grid — a claim many media outlets deemed misleading. Neither Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts nor Ohioans for Energy Security, which are both LLCs, disclosed who funded their campaigns. Following last week’s revelations, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called for Householder’s resignation. Environmental groups and some Democrats have called for HB6 to be repealed. DeWine first called HB6 “good policy,” but backtracked, acknowledging that a law passed by corrupt means was itself corrupt. House Republicans met Wednesday to determine if they should remove Householder from power. He has refused to resign voluntarily. -Nick Swartsell | clevescene.com | July 29-August 4, 2020
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