Selling their souls

This is a Letter to the Editor of the Brunswick Post from April 2024.

Corruption is not confined to any particular political party or ideology. Certainly, anyone can take or make a bribe or otherwise use power to profit by illegal means. Yet in recent years, it does seem to happen more on the right than the left. Yes, on the one hand, you have a few Democrats like Jimmy Dimora, James Traficant, and Bob Menendez. But these guys are small potatoes compared with top-of-the-food-chain crooks like Donald Trump, Scott Pruitt, and Larry Householder. Now that the other shoe has dropped, add the name of Sam Randazzo to that latter group.

According to the Associated Press, Randazzo, former chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, who was awaiting trial on charges that he took millions in bribes in conjunction with the largest corruption scandal in Ohio's history died by suicide on Tuesday. He had faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted of the dozens of criminal charges. The most notable was the allegation that he accepted a $4.3 million bribe from Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for regulatory favors. The suicide is unfortunate for any friends or family, but also because he will now not face the consequences for his actions.

Remember House Bill 6? The scheme that resulted in all that bribery money going to Ohio lawmakers (including Householder) and regulators (like Randazzo)? The scheme that resulted in Ohio residents paying more than necessary to FirstEnergy in order to prop up decrepit nuclear and coal plants? We still don’t know who all of the crooks were, and the entire extent of their thievery. So far, however, they’ve all been Republicans. And so far, your Ohio Legislature still hasn’t removed all of the HB6 knots and tangles.

The thing is, Randazzo, Householder, and their ilk have, at least in my opinion, sold their souls. They used their positions of power and influence to try to make themselves richer. This was not just at the expense of Ohioans as taxpayers and utility customers. It was to the detriment of the environment. Can this kind of corruption happen on the other side, like in support of the environment? Republicans might say yes, but I don’t think so. When you’re a crook, or when you support crooks, it’s easy to believe that the other side is just as crooked. But it ain’t necessarily so.