The Ohio House is taking up a bill that would impose tougher disclosure requirements on corporate political donors in the aftermath of the House Bill 6 scandal.
House Bill 13 would require political nonprofits and other corporate groups to disclose their donors and spending with the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office, similar to political action committees or political candidates. If passed, the new law would apply to 501c4s, political nonprofits often used as vehicles for “dark money” spending, or money that’s legally structured to keep its donors anonymous.
The bill also would remove a prohibition in state law that bars corporate political contributions, a statute that was rendered outdated by the 2010 Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision and which largely has been ignored or circumvented by dark money groups.
HB13 got its first Statehouse hearing on Thursday, with its sponsors, Rep. Mark Fraizer, of Newark and state Rep. Diane Grendell, of Chesterland, testifying before the House Government Oversight Committee.
“Ohioans are entitled to the full picture so that they are able to make the best informed decisions with all campaign finance information present,” Grendell said in her Thursday committee testimony.
Good-government advocates have pushed for tougher transparency requirements on dark-money groups in the aftermath of the federal bribery probe into the passage of HB6, a nuclear bailout bill which prosecutors have said was backed by $61 million in political spending that FirstEnergy and its allies funneled through a dark-money group aligned with former House Speaker Larry Householder.
The dark-money group, Generation Now, has pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering charge as has Jeff Longstreth, the former Householder aide who ran it, as part of the investigation. The group also spent money on ads supporting pro-Householder state legislative candidates, including Fraizer.
Read more at Cleveland.com.