Took First Energy PAC Money This Election Cycle: Sherrod Brown, Steny Hoyer, Every OH Rep., Sen.

[hatrack]

EDIT

Last month, federal prosecutors accused Ohio House Speaker of the House Larry Householder of accepting $61 million in bribes from FirstEnergy, in exchange for passing one of the worst anti-climate laws in the nation: a $1.6 billion taxpayer bailout of the company’s failing coal and nuclear plants, and the removal of all state incentives to build renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. FirstEnergy’s alleged attempt to buy off Householder constitutes “likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio,” said David DeVillers, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio who is prosecuting the case.

EDIT

Every single member of Ohio’s U.S. Congressional delegation is currently taking FirstEnergy PAC money. No incumbent from either party has refused it, nor have any indicated they would return it after the release of the FBI’s indictment. The U.S. lawmakers from Ohio who have taken the most FirstEnergy PAC money this cycle are Democratic Representatives Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan, and Republican Representatives Bob Latta, Bill Johnson and Anthony Gonzalez. Each have received the max donation of $10,000.

EDIT

Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who has called climate change “one of the defining moral issues of our time,” has received $5,000 from FirstEnergy’s PAC this election cycle. That’s more than twice the $2,000 FirstEnergy has given to Ohio’s other U.S. senator, Republican Rob Portman. It’s also the same amount FirstEnergy gave to Rep. Jim Jordan, who recently praised his climate denier colleague Rep. Thomas Massie for speaking “truth” about climate change. Asked by E&E News last year if he thought Democrats should be taking money from fossil fuel interests, Brown replied, “I really have not thought about it.” A few months later, he pledged not to take corporate PAC money if he ran for president.

EDIT

FirstEnergy’s PAC has given a combined $63,000 to 12 individual House Democrats this election cycle. The top Democratic recipient of FirstEnergy PAC money in the House (who’s not from Ohio) is New Jersey Rep. Donald Norcross. The Sierra Club has called Norcross “a leader on climate change.” The second ranking Democrat in the House, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, is also a top Democratic recipient of FirstEnergy PAC money. Hoyer’s campaign fund received $5,000 from the utility, and his leadership PAC received another $5,000.

EDIT

https://heated.world/p/the-politicians-in-firstenergys-pocket

[Bobstandard]

1. Take their money the screw em...

As the late great California Democrat Jesse Unruh used to say, “ If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them you've got no business being up here."