After scandal broke, FirstEnergy lobbyist pushed DeWine on "covid response"

Lobbyist helped direct dark-money group implicated in bribery scandal.


On Sept. 23, 2020, McKenzie K. Davis, a lobbyist with the Success Group, registered to lobby the administration of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on “covid response.”

The timing is curious because only six weeks earlier, federal authorities announced they’d arrested then-Speaker Larry Householder and four associates in what they said was “likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme ever in the state of Ohio.” Also implicated in the corrupt scheme was the company on whose behalf Davis had registered to lobby: Akron-based FirstEnergy.

Davis’s ties to the bribery scheme, as first reported by the Energy and Policy Institute, run deeper than that. In 2019, he served on the board of Partners for Progress, a 501(c)(4) “dark money” group that federal prosecutors say funneled tens of millions of FirstEnergy dollars into the corrupt effort to make Householder speaker and pass a $1.3 billion package while McKenzie served on the money group’s board.

The law, signed by DeWine, propped up two aging nuclear plants, as well as two 66-year-old coal plants — including one that isn’t even in Ohio. And in this time of dire climate news, it gutted standards for energy efficiency and renewables.

Read more: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021/08/16/after-scandal-broke-firstenergy-lobbyist-pushed-dewine-on-covid-response/