The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the cases of the only two people who have served prison time related to the largest utility corruption scandal in Ohio’s history.
Ohio’s House Bill 6 saga arose out of efforts by the utility FirstEnergy to obtain more than $1 billion in subsidies for its former nuclear plants in the state. Although lawmakers revoked that part of the law in 2021, HB 6 still cost Ohio utility customers approximately half a billion dollars and delayed the state’s energy transition by gutting its clean energy standards and subsidizing two 1950s-era coal plants.
In 2020, the federal government indicted former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and lobbyist Matt Borges, a previous head of the Ohio Republican Party, among others, on charges related to HB 6. The racketeering charges included allegations that the defendants had accepted some $60 million in bribes from FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries in exchange for their actions in pushing HB 6 through the legislature and then blocking a bid to let voters reject the law.
FirstEnergy admitted it had bribed Householder in a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement.
Householder and Borges were convicted in federal court in 2023 for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions last May.
The men appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court in petitions last December. Householder and Borges essentially argued that they couldn’t be held liable because, in supporting HB 6, Householder was carrying out a campaign promise to FirstEnergy — and such promises are protected by the First Amendment.
The government responded unequivocally: There was no basis for reversing the convictions.
“The Court has explained that the First Amendment does not protect corruption, whose ‘hallmark’ is ‘the financial quid pro quo: dollars for political favors,’” lawyers for the Department of Justice wrote in their brief in March.
The Supreme Court’s April 27 order is the end point of the Householder and Borges appeals process. It does not say why the justices denied review.
