{"id":331,"date":"2023-02-09T17:31:42","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/ohio\/articles\/tick-tick-boom-householder-trial-update-5\/"},"modified":"2023-02-09T17:31:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:31:42","slug":"tick-tick-boom-householder-trial-update-5","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/ohio\/articles\/tick-tick-boom-householder-trial-update-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Tick\u2026 Tick\u2026 Boom! – Householder Trial Update #5"},"template":"","class_list":["post-331","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article_type-blog-post"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"","featured_image":null,"article_type":153,"authors":null,"related_issues":[109,420],"related_work":false,"location":null},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"By Sandy Theis, former reporter and political analyst\r\n\r\nCINCINNATI\u2014On Wednesday, new statements, evidence, and testimony revealed more connections in the Householder trial and gave context to information we already knew.\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/ohio\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2023\/02\/Dowling3-300x196.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nAn Award for Lobbying?<\/b>\r\n\r\nBack in 2020, FirstEnergy received a major award. Not just <\/span>any <\/span><\/i>award. The Edwin D. Hill Award is considered \u201cthe World Series of public policy,\u2019\u2019 according to Mike Dowling, the now-fired FirstEnergy executive who accepted it.\u00a0 \u201cThere is no greater honor, to be honest with you.\u2019\u2019<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) honored the Akron utility with the labor-management award for its 2019 campaign to pass House Bill 6 -- the nuclear and coal-plant bailouts now at the center of the FBI\u2019s ongoing bribery case. FirstEnergy included this<\/span> video in its press release<\/span><\/a> t<\/span>o trumpet the honor, then<\/span> removed it from public view<\/span><\/a> after the now-tainted law generated six <\/span>i<\/span>ndictments<\/span><\/a>, including former Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges. We are able to watch this video thanks to the Energy and Policy Institute.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nOn Feb. 8, Thomas Kuhn, the head of the group that gave FirstEnergy the award, said EEI works with IBEW \u201cto advance state and local issues on behalf of member companies \u2018\u2019 such as FirstEnergy, and he said his organization was not aware of the scandal when the award was given. \u201cFirstEnergy did not self-nominate or otherwise urge us to present this award to them,\u2019\u2019 he said in a written statement on Feb. 8. He did not respond to a message asking if IBEW urged EEI to do so.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nReached for comment, Ashley Brown, who previously served as the consumer voice on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) that sets utility rates, called the giving of the award \u201cludicrous.\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nBrown said, <\/span>\u201cThis is like giving <\/b>Arthur Anderson an accounting award after the collapse of Enron<\/b><\/a>.<\/b>\u2019\u2019 He also suspects there is a back story that explains its strategic timing.<\/span>\r\n\r\nHouseholder and Borges are on trial in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati where they face charges of racketeering. They are accused of using more than $60 million\u2014much of it flowing through the nonprofit Generation Now\u2014to install Householder as Ohio House Speaker, pass a bill to bailout nukes owned at the time by a FirstEnergy subsidiary, and used aggressive tactics to block an effort to ask voters to overturn it.<\/span>\r\n\r\nTim Burga Has a Change of Heart<\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nHouseholder\u2019s lawyers are hoping to get a lifeline from labor leaders with a history of supporting Democrats.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThey subpoenaed Tim Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO. Householder\u2019s lawyers hope that Burga will show jurors that entities other than FirstEnergy supported Generation Now, and it really wasn\u2019t the villainous dark money group that the FBI is making it out to be.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWe already knew that most of the $60 million that the FBI argues are bribes came from FirstEnergy. This week, we learned that IBEW and other<\/span> Ohio AFL-CIO members paid $840,000<\/span><\/a> to the dark money group\u2014but we aren\u2019t sure that the unions knew exactly what the money would be used for. <\/span>Court filings<\/span><\/a> last week revealed\u2014for the first time\u2014that the AFL-CIO received $1.4 million from Generation Now.<\/span>\r\n\r\nOn its <\/span>editorial page<\/span><\/a> on Feb. 3, the Toledo Blade called for \u201cA full line-item accounting for the heretofore unknown $1.4 million supplied by FirstEnergy through Mr. Householder\u2026. Was all the money spent to produce and distribute the TV commercials and mailers meant to convince Ohio voters not to sign petitions to put the bailout on the ballot?\u2019\u2019<\/span>\r\n\r\nAfter initially saying he would fight the subpoena, on Feb. 8,<\/span> Burga changed his tune<\/span><\/a> and now says he will testify. In the past, Burga said his sole reason for supporting the bailout was concerns over thousands of jobs at the two nuclear power plants that he feared would be lost without it.<\/span>\r\n\r\nBoom!<\/b>\r\n\r\nIn the trial\u2019s first three weeks, jurors learned how Larry Householder and Matt Borges worked hard to cover their tracks,<\/span> urged friends and foes to destroy potentially damaging public records<\/span><\/a> and sometimes<\/span> used tracking devices to monitor political foes<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThis week the jurors also learned that now-fired FirstEnergy VP Dowling fancies the word \u201cboom.\u2019\u2019<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn one text message presented to jurors, Dowling celebrated news that a state plane\u2014at taxpayer expense\u2014would be dispatched to return<\/span> lawmakers to Columbus to vote for the bailout bill.<\/span> Gov. DeWine\u2019s then-chief of staff, Laurel Dawson\u2014married to a FirstEnergy consultant\u2014approved the expense.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201dMike Dawson\u2019s wife.<\/span> Boom,<\/span><\/a>\u201d <\/span>Dowling wrote in a text.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhen the Householder-led House passed the bailout bill, Dowling and other utility executives were euphoric.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201c<\/span>Boom<\/span><\/a>! Congrats. This doesn\u2019t happen without CEO leadership,\u2019\u2019 Dowling texted FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones.<\/span>\r\n\r\nFirstEnergy fired Jones and Dowling<\/span><\/a> in October 2020, saying an internal review showed they violated company policies and its code of conduct.<\/span>\r\n