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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, The Ohio Capital Journal released new text messages today showing the former top utility regulator (and Mike DeWine appointee) helped FirstEnergy line its own pockets at the expense of hard-working Ohioans. The new messages put Shady Sam back in hot water, showing he provided FirstEnergy a myriad of favors from inside the DeWine administration, including dropping a few key sentences into the 2019 state budget that saved FirstEnergy millions of dollars and prevented Ohioans from receiving refunds based on the major profits the company received. DeWine appointed Randazzo to lead PUCO despite warnings about his close ties to Big Energy — close ties that ended up costing Ohioans dearly.  

“PUCO’s stated mission is to ensure Ohioans can access utility services like electric distribution, in a monopolistic market, at fair prices. The texts, however, suggest that PUCO’s chairman worked behind the scenes so utilities could pocket hefty margins from captive customers instead of refunding them,” writes Jake Zuckerman with The Ohio Capital Journal. 

“While Sam Randazzo was helping FirstEnergy keep money out of the pockets of hard-working Ohioans, Mike DeWine was praising Randazzo for the ‘good work’ he was doing. Ohioans deserve a government that is looking out for them, not big, special interests. It’s time for a new direction for Ohio,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

You can read more from Ohio Capital Journal here and below: 

• Ohio’s top utility regulator quietly lobbied lawmakers to include a provision in the state budget that saved tens of millions for FirstEnergy Corp., text messages from company executives show.

• Court records indicate prosecutors have mostly focused on two outputs from Randazzo to benefit FirstEnergy: his backstage role shaping HB 6, and his steering of PUCO decisions. 
• The obtained text messages, however, suggest Randazzo also helped convince lawmakers to slip into the 2019 budget a short few sentences worth millions to FirstEnergy.

• “Senate kept SEET in — thanks to ty and Sam Randazzo,” FirstEnergy Senior Vice President of External Affairs Michael Dowling texted to the company’s CEO Charles Jones on June 19, 2019, according to messages provided to The Ohio Capital Journal.
• The texts don’t identify “ty.” However, lobbying records show FirstEnergy’s director of state affairs, Ty Pine, registered to lobby on the budget.

• PUCO’s stated mission is to ensure Ohioans can access utility services like electric distribution, in a monopolistic market, at fair prices. The texts, however, suggest that PUCO’s chairman worked behind the scenes so utilities could pocket hefty margins from captive customers instead of refunding them.
• The change allowed FirstEnergy, technically the parent company of three Ohio utilities, to group its three subsidiaries together in determining whether their profits were “significantly excessive.” 
• This allowed FirstEnergy’s Ohio Edison utility, which serves more than 1 million residents, to run up what its critics call a significantly excessive profit margin, so long as lower returns from the other two brought down the aggregate rate.
• “FirstEnergy has used the SEET law change to avoid customer refunds and also to obfuscate what Ohio Edison’s earnings are, so that interested parties, regulators, and policymakers cannot determine how much excessive profit they are keeping,” wrote two consultants in a 2020 memo for the Ohio Manufacturers Association, which represents large-scale electricity customers.
• The obtained text messages add new detail alongside other previously known Randazzo interventions in PUCO cases and lobbying lawmakers to FirstEnergy’s benefit.

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Columbus, OH —  GOP U.S. Senate Candidate J.D. Vance “blew past the October 29 deadline to file federally mandated financial-disclosure forms,” according to a new report from Business Insider. A personal financial disclosure allows voters to see how candidates make their money and any potential conflicts of interest that may exist that voters should know about before they head to the polls. 

“Ohioans have to pay their bills on time but for a Silicon Valley millionaire like Vance, deadlines are merely suggestions. Now voters are being forced to wait to learn the extent of Vance’s Big Tech ties – but just like how he tried to cover up his anti-Trump past, Vance will fail to hide the truth from Ohioans,” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party. 

Business Insider: Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio missed a major financial-disclosure deadline — and still hasn’t shared details of his wealth. Here’s why that matters.

Meghan Morris, Kimberly Leonard, and Adam Wren 

November 8, 2021 

• The “Hillbilly Elegy” author turned US Senate hopeful J.D. Vance blew past the October 29 deadline to file federally mandated financial-disclosure forms.
• Vance’s disclosure could detail the money he made from five years of tech investing and “Hillbilly Elegy” sales, as well as his subsequent Netflix adaptation deal. It could also provide information about business ties Vance has to the billionaire Republican megadonor Peter Thiel, who is financially backing Vance’s Senate bid.
• Such financial disclosures also detail candidates’ investments in public and private companies, real estate, brokerage accounts, pensions, and other holdings. They also show any debt that candidates have.
• Under federal law, Vance had 30 days to disclose his financial records after he filed his campaign paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. His first deadline was July 31, but he filed for and was granted an extension, which made October 29 the new deadline.
• Federal officials generally waive a $200 late-filing fee as long as a candidate files no more than 30 days late. But Vance is still in violation of the law for failing to disclose the financial documents on time.
• “Financial-disclosure laws have strict deadlines because voters have a right to know the candidate’s potential conflicts of interests well before they cast their ballots,” Kedric Payne, the senior director of ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, told Insider. “When candidates fail to comply with the deadlines, voters should question whether they will comply with ethics laws once elected.”
• The Ohio Democratic Party highlighted Vance’s blown deadline in a Monday email blast. “For a millionaire like Vance, a deadline is just a suggestion,” the email said.
• In 2016, Vance joined the Thiel-backed venture-capital firm Mithril Capital, then hopped to Steve Case’s venture-capital firm, Revolution, the following year.
• In 2019, he left to found his own venture-capital firm in Ohio, Narya Capital. Vance’s investors in his debut $100 million fund include Thiel, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and the legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
• This summer, Vance took a leave of absence from Narya, handing the firm reins to cofounder Colin Greenspon.
• His campaign has repeatedly declined to answer questions from Insider about how Vance would separate his conflicts of interest between his investments — which include companies in agriculture and defense — and his seat in the Senate.
• Experts on venture capital expressed concern about Vance’s potential conflicts in an August investigation by Insider into his mixed record as a tech investor and nonprofit founder. 
• “There are a thousand red flags,” said Jeff Sohl, the director of the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research. “You’re either going to be a really great VC and a bad senator, or a bad VC and a great senator. Or what will likely happen is you’re worse at both because you can’t do both jobs.”

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Good Monday afternoon, and welcome back to 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:

ON OFFENSE. The Browns and the Bengals weren’t the only ones battling it out on Sunday. Ohioans watching the game saw an ad from the Renacci campaign that took viewers of the Browns-Bengals matchup inside the other messy and divisive game that is the Republican gubernatorial primary. Viewers saw this ad targeting DeWine’s lack of leadership in Ohio, before going extreme and saying his “reign of terror must come to an end.” All of this as Renacci tweeted just after the ad played that DeWine “shut down” football last year. It’s just the opening salvo of what is sure to be a messy primary that will play out over the airwaves and across Ohio.  

LITERALLY A “NO” VOTE. At a recent event, Jim Renacci told a crowd of Republican activists not to vote for Mike DeWine if he gets through the Republican primary, showing just how apart the GOP base is from DeWine. A few days later, Renacci went on to admit he did not vote for Mike DeWine in 2018 at all. When asked if he would consider a “none of the above” box on a ballot forcing a special election runoff, Renacci said “I didn’t like him [DeWine] in 2018 and I left it blank. All right? That was my none of the above vote.” Seems bad! 

MAPMAKER, MAPMAKER, YOU MADE TRASH MAPS. Since blatantly unconstitutional and gerrymandered maps now under lawsuits weren’t enough, and Republicans including Mike DeWine couldn’t handle the constitutional responsibility of doing their jobs, Ohio Republicans got a chance to draw lines on paper last week. This time for congressional districts. Hint, they didn’t do a good job. The “map” proposed by Republicans is, in fact, nakedly partisan and rigs Ohio for Republicans. So, did Mike DeWine step in on this map to fight for what Ohioans demanded at the ballot box? When asked, DeWine said he’s pretty sure the maps “won’t fly.” But if we’re betting, DeWine will follow his own precedent and just sign the maps anyway because DeWine will always put his political ambitions over the needs of Ohio voters.

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 — Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters released the following statement today following the landmark passage in the U.S. House of Representatives of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which will create jobs in Ohio and provide critical investments for infrastructure projects around the state. Now the package President Biden, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, and Democrats in our congressional delegation helped negotiate will head to President Biden’s desk. 

“While every leading Ohio Republican running for U.S. Senate opposes this historic plan to create more good-paying jobs right here in Ohio, President Biden, Senator Brown, and Democrats in our congressional delegation worked to deliver one of the boldest infrastructure plans in our lifetime that will invest in our roads, bridges, water pipes, and high-speed internet. By opposing this plan, every leading GOP Senate candidate shows they don’t care about bringing jobs back from overseas, investing in high-speed internet, and helping America compete with countries like China that threaten our economy. This infrastructure bill is a big deal for Ohio – it means critical funding for the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati, new investments in high-speed internet in Zanesville, and will help fix water pipes in Columbus – and I am grateful to President Biden, Senator Brown, and Democrats in our congressional delegation for making this once-in-a-generation plan a reality,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters. 

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November 5, 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. 

Here’s what you may have missed:

FLIP-FLOPPING FLIPPER. A new USA Freedom Fund ad was released this week with possibly the worst jingle we’ve ever heard: “J.D.’s a flip, flip, flip-flopping flipper / deleted his [anti-Trump] tweets / but we have the receipts.” The tweets featured are the same ones USA Freedom Fund used on their attack website nochancevance.com. This ad follows one from last week where they claimed Vance “abandoned the Republican Party” and called Trump an “idiot.” USA Freedom Fund is backing Josh Mandel in the race, and given Mandel’s propensity to go on the attack, it’s clear that Vance will have to continue answering questions about his anti-Trump past – and these questions aren’t going away any time soon! 

BORING AND FAKE? In an interview on Breitbart News, J.D. Vance (presumably feeling the heat from the $1 million in ads attacking him for his anti-Trump past) decided to say that what distinguishes him from the rest of the GOP Senate field is that he tries “to not be boring and … not be fake.” He said, “At the end of the day, I think our voters can sniff out when somebody’s  just repeating slogans at them instead of talking to them about real issues. I try to talk to them about real issues.” Hmm, is he talking about Timken, Mandel, Moreno, Gibbons, or Dolan? Who’s to say? But as usual, we do know Vance is inflating his credentials here – he is incredibly boring and fake.

BUNCH OF MILLIONAIRES AND GAZILLIONAIRES. This primary has up to five self-funding candidates (and could be more!) – with many of them multi-millionaires – and that isn’t making Josh Mandel happy. At his election lie rally this week, Mandel said he’s running against “a bunch of millionaires and gazillionaires.” Josh Mandel is also a millionaire, no matter how he may try to hide it. It’s why we’ve been calling this primary a millionaire melee!  

“CLUB FOR CHINESE GROWTH.” In responding to Club for Growth’s attack ad against him, J.D. Vance said on Charlie Kirk’s show the group was the “Club for Chinese Growth.” Vance then discussed how RINOs (like him) did not support Trump’s first run for president. That’s correct, J.D.! This primary is phonies attacking each other for being phonies when everyone’s a phony. It’s hard to keep up. 

SILICON VALLEY AND WALL STREET RINOs. At his election lie rally, Mandel this week said that all of the RINOS running against him for U.S. Senate are financially backed by Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This isn’t the first time Mandel has bashed Vance for his Silicon Valley millionaire past. In September, Mandel bashed Vance’s Big Tech and Hollywood connections in an interview with Ben Shapiro, saying, “I think if the election were held today in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street or DC, I think J.D. Vance would run away with it. But if the election was held today in Ohio, he’d get destroyed, because Ohioans are not buying what he’s selling…They see him as a total phony and a total fraud.” Vance isn’t alone…Mandel has also made thousands off Big Tech as well. 

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!