Turns out we were right all along about the culture of corruption that has long existed at utility-giant FirstEnergy Corporation. They have been up to no good.

The Dayton Daily News reported last night that FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions donated more than $1 million to dark money nonprofit groups and political campaigns since 2017 to help elect Governor Mike DeWine. 

FirstEnergy was able to contribute $500K to help elect Mike DeWine, and nearly $2 million to Larry Householder’s dark money group but needed a bailout from Ohio consumers?

This goes even deeper than campaign contributions

You may remember that back in November 2020, a FirstEnergy disclosure showed that a $4 million payment was made to an unnamed individual who would become a high-ranking state regulator, supposedly to end a longstanding consulting agreement. In the same week, former Public Utilities Commission Chairman Sam Randazzo’s home was raided by the FBI, and he resigned his position with the PUCO.

As details from that FirstEnergy filing continue to come to light, we now see that the individual acted “at the request or for the benefit of FirstEnergy as a consequence of receiving such payment.”  Emails obtained by the FBI also show that Randazzo helped write House Bill 6 while leading the PUCO.

He was working on legislation that would have benefited FirstEnergy to the tune of $1 billion while serving as the state’s top utility regulator

The time has come to end the culture of corruption in Ohio perpetuated by big utilities that flex their political muscle and hand-pick their own regulators.