What are the dangers of dark money?

The speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives was kicked out of his role last week after being arrested by the FBI on bribery charges a few weeks earlier. Larry Householder stands accused of taking bribes and turning those bribes into dark money, which is money spent on elections where the source is unknown to the public. His alleged crimes are exactly the type of scheme that campaign finance advocates have been warning of for years.

At the federal level, over $1 billion in dark money has been spent since 2008, and dark money has grown in state elections as well.

According to the Justice Department, the $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio was funded by an energy company then called FirstEnergy which is now called Energy Harbor. The company wanted a bailout bill that would cost the taxpayers of Ohio a billion dollars — and it got it.

House Bill 6 was shepherded through the Ohio House by Householder, passed the Ohio Senate, and was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2019. The bailout applies to two nuclear power plants in Ohio owned by FirstEnergy/Energy Harbor.According to the DOJ, the energy company gave millions of dollars to Householder’s advocacy nonprofit, called Generation Now. It then spent dark money in Ohio elections supporting both candidates and a campaign for the bailout bill. Because this money was dark, the voters in Ohio did not know its corporate source or Householder’s role in dolling it out. Generation Now, a 501(c)(4), was also charged as being a participant in the conspiracy.

This is precisely the trouble with dark money in our elections. It could be covering up all sorts of illegality, from alleged bribes of lawmakers in the Ohio case here or potentially illegal foreign money in American elections. And even when dark money is simply hiding a cowardly corporate donor, it still robs shareholders and voters of transparency and accountability.

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