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Good Monday afternoon, and welcome to the first edition of Mike Check, your weekly source of all the infighting, conspiracy spewing and corruption that’s making headlines in and around the Republican governor’s race and Mike DeWine’s statehouse, courtesy of the Ohio Democratic Party.

As the gubernatorial race heats up, Republicans are in disarray with Mike DeWine’s popularity dropping by the day, facing attacks both inside and outside of the Republican Party, and having to answer for the largest public corruption scandal in state history. It’s hard to keep up with all of the corruption and mess surrounding Mike DeWine and the GOP gubernatorial primary, so here are some stories you may have missed:

WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? That’s the big question this week when it comes to state redistricting maps. Mike DeWine, in a sworn deposition, ducked questions and denied any involvement in the map-making process. Admitting under oath they couldn’t be bothered to do the jobs they were all elected to do, DeWine joined Frank LaRose and Keith Faber to all say they “had no involvement” in the mapmaking process, yet decided to vote for the unconstitutional maps anyway, because once again, they’re only looking out for themselves. We can’t imagine many hard-working Ohioans get to duck their jobs and then shift the blame to someone else, neither should their elected officials.

DEWINE’S CORRUPT FAMILY TREE. Mike DeWine’s son and Ohio Supreme Court Justice, Pat DeWine, took a page out of dear old Dad’s political playbook this week by following his own ambitions instead of doing what’s right for Ohio. In case you missed multiple news reports, Pat DeWine continues to refuse to recuse himself from lawsuits surrounding blatantly gerrymandered redistricting maps that directly involve his father. It’s a move so outrageous, Cleveland.com (among others) said the refusal to act may even be “unprecedented.”

SMELLS LIKE STATEHOUSE CORRUPTION. The overarching question for the week: Does Mike DeWine still think Sam Randazzo ‘did a great job?’ Last Thursday, text messages obtained by the Ohio Consumers’ Council show DeWine’s good buddy overruled others on the Public Utilities Commission to secure policies that benefited FirstEnergy. Yes, the same FirstEnergy that admitted to bribing Randazzo with $4.3 million for friendly administrative rulings. Oh, we almost forgot, the messages also show Randazzo successfully “burned” a final PUCO audit into a FirstEnergy customer charge the Ohio Supreme Court ruled should never have been approved by Randazzo and PUCO in the first place. Doesn’t sound so much like a ‘great job’ to us.

RENACCI ON THE ATTACK. We had to watch this ad several times just to tell you it might be one of the “wildest” we’ve seen in a few campaign cycles.

JUST ONE MORE THING TO MAKE ‘WRIGHT’. We couldn’t let the newsletter end without mentioning yet another major blunder for the DeWine administration, as the governor and his team had to find a way to ‘Wright’ a pretty big wrong on Ohio’s new license plates. In what should have been a fun event Thursday, DeWine took the wraps off of a new license plate design. Yet, anyone who has been to the Smithsonian or read a history book realized something wasn’t quite ‘Wright’ with the first design, with the iconic Wright Flyer facing the wrong direction. The DeWine administration had to embarrassingly and quickly try to fix their mistakes, walk back the design and reissue a new license plate. Here’s hoping they’ll do PUCO next.

Thanks for catching up with us, that’s all the Mike Check we’ve got for this week. If you have questions my email is [email protected]. Have a great week!

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Columbus, OH — Following the GOP Senate forum tonight, Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Michael Beyer released the following statement: 

“Tonight, Ohioans heard nothing from the out-of-touch millionaires running for Senate about how they plan to help working families. Instead, tonight featured more attacks from politicians too busy lambasting each other to talk about issues that are actually important to voters. Ohioans deserve a senator who is focused on them, but all they heard tonight were self-obsessed millionaires who are willing to do or say anything to advance their own political careers.”  

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October 22, 2021

Happy Friday, and welcome to “Buckeye Brawl,” a weekly newsletter from the Ohio Democratic Party highlighting the nasty, chaotic, and expensive Republican primary for Senate. This out-of-control primary is making conservatives “deeply worried” about the prospects of Republicans losing this seat. 

As the Republican Senate primary continues to sink lower and lower, these GOP candidates are injecting even more nasty personal attacks, more chaos, and more money into this race. We’re here to help you keep track of all of it. 

A reminder that the Senate field is set to take the debate stage Sunday in Westerville, where they’re sure to continue their deeply personal attacks on one another to try and grab the Failed Blogger from Florida’s attention, as the Apprentice: Ohio Senate Edition continues. You can attend the forum in person by signing up HERE or watch online on Facebook Live Sunday at 7:00 p.m. 

Here’s what you may have missed:

NO ACTUALLY, I SUPPORT THE BIG LIE MORE. On the trail, Mandel frequently lies about the results of the 2020 election and says he’s the only candidate who has called for a 50 state audit of the 2020 election. Well, that’s news to J.D. Vance who this week said that he was actually the first candidate in the GOP Senate primary to call for a 50 state audit of the 2020 election. At a forum earlier this month, Josh Mandel said he was the only candidate who believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen (it wasn’t) and the only candidate calling for a 50 state audit (a dangerous political stunt) in contrast to the rest of the GOP Senate field. Mandel repeated the Buckeye Big Lie, a new lie Mandel has made up that Trump won Ohio by more than 8 points. Don’t trip over each other when you’re racing to kiss Trump’s ring, J.D. and Josh! 

RED FLAG. Bernie Moreno ran the red flag meme on Twitter into the ground last week, attacking all the leading GOP Senate candidates with a different version of the Twitter trend. He attacked Timken, tweeting, “You claim to care about your home State of Ohio, but put rye [sic] vast majority of your employees in another State.” He attacked Dolan, tweeting, “You vote against the heart beat bill, for more gun regulation, don’t stand up to the woke mob, want trillions more in spending, and run as a conservative.” He attacked Gibbons (?), tweeting, “You claim to support Israel, but have never visited the country, despite having the resources to do so.” He attacked Mandel, tweeting, “You protest at school board meetings last week, but stayed silent when schools were ordered shut down last year.” He attacked Vance (?), tweeting, “You rant against ‘woke’ corporations, but take their PAC money.” Can one of Bernie Moreno’s staffers check on him? Is he ok? 

PHONIES, NEVER TRUMPERS, AND QUITTERS. In an invite to tailgate outside of Sunday’s forum, Timken’s campaign decided to slam the other candidates. Their campaign said, “It is up to us to make sure the United States Senate seat is not stolen by any phony, never Trump candidates, or anyone who has quit on our state before.” This follows Timken ally Kristi Noem going after Mandel last month, saying she doesn’t “want a quitter in the United States Senate” and that “we need leaders that don’t want the job so bad that they don’t do the job.” Sure seems like Timken is getting ready to fire up the attacks at the forum Sunday! Don’t forget to grab your popcorn. 

Thanks for reading along – that’s all for the Buckeye Brawl this week. If you have questions, my email is [email protected]. Have a great weekend! 

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, more proof surfaced Wednesday that former PUCO chair Sam Randazzo is in fact crooked. A new Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer report shares newly released text messages showing Mike DeWine’s good buddy overruled others on the utility commission to secure policies that benefited FirstEnergy. Yes, the same FirstEnergy that admitted to bribing Randazzo $4.3 million for friendly administrative rulings. 

The new documents from the Ohio Consumers’ Council also show Randazzo successfully “burned” a final PUCO audit into a FirstEnergy customer charge that was so outrageous, it cost Ohioans more than $150 million per year from 2017-2019, until the Ohio Supreme Court ruled it should never have been approved by Randazzo and PUCO in the first place.  

“The new details add context to an excerpt of [Chuck] Jones’ text included in FirstEnergy’s deferred prosecution agreement with federal authorities stating that there’s “a lot of talk going on in the halls of PUCO about does (Randazzo) work there or for us,” writes Cleveland.com’s Jeremy Pelzer. 

“Does Mike DeWine still think that Sam Randazzo did ‘a great job?’” asked Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

You can read more from Cleveland.com here and below:  

• Ex-Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Sam Randazzo, whom FirstEnergy Corp. admitted to bribing, overruled other commissioners and staff to secure policies that benefited the Akron-based utility, according to a text message from former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, obtained by a watchdog group.

• The OCC is now questioning whether that report contained information about whether FirstEnergy was improperly using money collected from customers to help pay a $60 million bribe to secure the passage of House Bill 6, a $1 billion-plus ratepayer bailout of two Ohio nuclear power plants operated at the time by a FirstEnergy subsidiary.

• The new details add context to an excerpt of Jones’ text included in FirstEnergy’s deferred prosecution agreement with federal authorities stating that there’s “a lot of talk going on in the halls of PUCO about does (Randazzo) work there or for us?” 

• As part of that agreement, FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $230 million fine and admitted to bribing Randazzo and ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, both of whom deny any wrongdoing.

• In the full text, Jones wrote that Randazzo had been “overruling” staff and other commissioners “on decoupling, getting rid of SEET and burning the DMR final report.” Jones also said he stopped by Randazzo’s house during a walk.

• Jones’ text message doesn’t provide more detail about exactly what actions Randazzo took regarding decoupling and the SEET, both of which were significant policy priorities of FirstEnergy.

• Last March, after Randazzo resigned from the PUCO, the commission ordered a new audit into whether money from the distribution modernization rider was misused for HB6-related activities. That audit is still ongoing.

• FirstEnergy Corp. spokeswoman Jennifer Young declined to comment when asked about Jones’ text and Randazzo’s role in decoupling and the SEET test, as well as “burning” the final audit.

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Columbus, OH — Frank LaRose’s unending quest to make voting more difficult in Ohio has once more revealed itself to be about more than just greasing the skids for his reelection campaign to the Secretary of State’s office. Yesterday, LaRose proved yet again that he’s got his eyes on the U.S. Senate when he attacked U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown for doing the job that LaRose should be doing and protecting Ohioans’ voting rights. But instead of doing the job he collects a taxpayer salary for, LaRose is busy pushing a strictly partisan anti-voter bill and further attempting to rig the game in his favor to bolster his own political ambitions.

“Frank LaRose was elected to protect the voting interests of the people of Ohio, but the only political interests he’s pushing are his own. As LaRose continues transparently campaigning for Senate, he’s even using his office to push anti-voter legislation he surely believes will benefit his short and long-term goals by putting up roadblocks that will keep Ohio voters from holding him accountable. LaRose clearly doesn’t want to do the job he has now, and Ohio Democrats are more than happy to make sure he doesn’t keep it much longer,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

LaRose has been repeatedly called out in recent weeks for playing political games to further his own personal ambitions and for failing to call out his fellow Republicans when they question the integrity of Ohio elections, because that might lose him support within his own party. LaRose is a purely political animal, and anything he says or does should be treated that way.

Read more here:

• ICYMI: Frank LaRose Once Again Plays Politics with Election Integrity, Refuses to Stand up to His Own Party as They Continue to Lie about Ohio Elections
• Twice in One Week: Frank LaRose Gets Called Out AGAIN for Playing Politics with Ohioans’ Right to Vote
• Frank LaRose Gets Called Out for His Election Hypocrisy
• It’s a Day that Ends in Y, So Frank LaRose is Playing Politics with Voting Rights

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