For the second time in two years, a deep-pocketed political group backed by the cryptocurrency industry is trying to end Sherrod Brown’s political career.
FairShake PAC announced this week it would spend $30 million on new ads targeting Brown. The group’s financial backers include Ripple Labs, which produces a cryptocurrency used for payments and has given $48 million to the PAC. Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, gave the PAC $25 million, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The group’s ads, sponsored by an affiliate called Defend American Jobs, have already started airing, according to Medium Buying, a political ad tracking firm outside of Columbus. Neither ad mentions cryptocurrency.
One is a positive ad about Republican Sen. Jon Husted’s biography. The second one plays the Republican hits, criticizing Brown for past liberal votes to hike the federal gas tax, expand the IRS and “give Social Security benefits to illegals” (which is a dubious claim.)
Patrick Eisenhauer, Brown’s campaign manager, issued an olive branch to Big Crypto in April, saying the former Democratic senator would keep an “open mind” on the subject. He revoked the gesture after the group announced its plans to unload on Brown again.
“Of course the special interests are panicking. They know Sherrod will fight the rigged system they’re feasting on to stand up for working Ohioans,” Eisenhauer said.
McColley meets with the lobbying class
Nationwide Energy Partners, the biggest player in the state’s controversial submetering industry, experienced major political losses this year in the form of an Ohio Supreme Court ruling and gubernatorial veto.
The company, which along with other submeterers – which buy electricity at a wholesale rate and resell it to apartment renters at an inflated price – has been accused of price gouging on customers’ electric bills and has since found the ear of a powerful listener.
Nationwide’s CEO, TJ Harper, had two 30-minute phone calls with Rob McColley, president of the Ohio Senate and the running mate of Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, according to a copy of McColley’s calendar obtained by Signal Statewide.
The first call came three weeks after Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the company’s preferred legislative package and called the industry “fundamentally flawed.” Maria Haberman, the company’s senior vice president and lobbyist, joined both CEO calls and appeared in two other entries on McColley’s calendar this year.
Should the Ramaswamy ticket win, McColley, a business and probate attorney, would be the most experienced legislative strategist of the GOP ticket by a mile, making him an important ally to any business interest, both for his current role and his potential future one.
Haberman is one of 38 lobbyists – a figure that’s likely an undercount – reflected on McColley’s calendar. The activity reflects jockeying and relationship building with someone who’s already powerful and whose star may be on the rise.
You can read about the other CEOs scoring an audience with McColley, the crossover between McColley’s official calendar and the campaign’s donor list, a short list of lobbyists who have secured the most entries on a powerful calendar, and more from Jake here.
October surprise
Republican lawmakers announced a plan Wednesday to cut their campaign-season break short to try to pass a gas tax holiday plan proposed this week by Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy’s plan would suspend Ohio’s motor fuel tax – which is 38.5 cents per gallon for gas and 47 cents per gallon for diesel – for 90 days. It would use $678 million in state reserve funds to pay for the road and bridge projects that the tax finances.
Lawmakers hadn’t been scheduled to meet again until after the November election. But Ramaswamy said urgency is required to address record-high diesel prices – which have coincided with a surge in polling for Democratic candidates across the country this month.
The proposal faces additional political questions as Republicans try to wrangle their members for the unplanned vote. Democrats, whose support is needed for the measure to take effect immediately, will have to decide whether to help Republicans with a major political issue days before early voting begins. And Republicans also will have to win over Gov. Mike DeWine, who’s repeatedly said Ohio’s road network already lacks adequate funding.
Hemp and marijuana industries are still fighting
The ongoing business and political clash between the marijuana and hemp industries – which produce similar products and are derived from the same plant but are subjected to entirely different regulatory schemes – continued this week.
Wesley Bryant, owner of 420 Craft Beverages in Brook Park, summoned reporters to the Statehouse Monday and sounded off about what he called a double standard in the cannabis game.
In his telling, hemp has become a pariah, requiring him to lawyer up to fight off a statewide ban, which is currently frozen in federal court, and deal with recent friction like an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper seizing lawful products from his customer. (He provided video of the alleged incident depicting two troopers seizing a box from a man’s car.)
Meanwhile, marijuana dispensaries have been selling products that exceed the potency caps, according to a hemp industry-funded survey of state dispensaries filed in a recent court case. And regulators have allowed it to happen unfettered.
“Same product, regulated two different ways,” Bryant said, referring to hemp and marijuana. “We follow the same standard on our testing, rules and regulations in regards to the same standards as the marijuana guys do. Always have.”
An Ohio Division of Cannabis Control spokesman didn’t directly respond to the allegation that dispensaries are selling unlawfully potent products but noted that new state rules give regulators permission to allow this. A representative of OHCANN, the cannabis industry’s main trade group, which lobbied for the hemp ban, didn’t respond to an inquiry.
Democrats roiled by Kaptur’s transgender ad
In one of the most closely watched House races in the nation, Democrats are fighting among themselves over transgender politics.
The Lucas County Democratic Party this week issued an open letter calling on Kaptur to take down a new campaign ad in which she describes her opposition to “transgender ideology” in schools and “boys playing in girls’ sports.”
“We are disappointed and ashamed that the Kaptur campaign stooped to their level by using incredibly dangerous anti-trans rhetoric,” said the letter, which followed a similar statement by the Lucas County Stonewall Dems and led to a similar statement by the Wood County Democratic Party.
Republicans quickly pointed to the public disagreement – a continuation of criticism Kaptur received over the summer – as a sign of disunity among Democrats. The National Republican Congressional Committee has accused Kaptur of political opportunism meant to obscure her past votes favoring transgender rights. Kaptur’s move comes after some Democrats concluded their party’s past liberal stances on transgender issues hurt them in the 2024 election.
In an interview, Schuyler Beckwith, the chair of the Lucas County Democratic Party, called the letter an incredibly difficult decision, given her concern that it might undermine Kaptur, who represents the most pro-Trump district of any congressional Democrat in the U.S. But she said she still is encouraging Democrats to vote for Kaptur and believes she will be reelected.
“I think that’s why it was so devastating, because it was so cruel and unnecessary,” Beckwith said.
Kaptur’s ad described the Republicans’ anti-transgender attacks as an attempt to distract from high gas prices and the war in Iran. Brown took a similar approach in his own ad – which portrayed transgender issues as settled law in Ohio before quickly moving on to other issues.
Beckwith praised Brown’s ad as a more tactful way to handle the issue.
“There’s plenty to talk about without throwing some of the most vulnerable in our community under the bus,” Beckwith said.
Kylie Blitzer, a spokeswoman for Kaptur’s campaign, sent Andrew a statement that didn’t address the intraparty criticism.
“Marcy supports parents having more insight into their children’s education. That’s why she set the record straight on her vote with Republicans to give parents more say in the classroom,” Blitzer said. “And it’s why she believes parents, coaches, and local sports associations — not politicians in Washington — should set the rules in their communities to ensure girls’ sports stay fair.”
On the calendar:
- Lawmakers are back in Columbus next week as Republicans try to pause the gas tax
- Voter registration deadline is Oct. 5
- Early voting begins Oct. 6
In the news
Democrat Amy Acton joins the fracking-waste fight in red Ohio. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton is endorsing Marietta Republicans’ call for a three-year moratorium on injection wells in Washington County. The move came during a multiday swing through Appalachia in which Acton also met with leaders of a regional vocational school in Gallia County as she tries to reverse years of steep Democratic losses in the area. Read more from Jake and Andrew.
Wall Street is growing skeptical of the data center boom: The New York Times reports that SB Energy, the parent company of the planned $500 billion data center project in Piketon, is delaying its plans to issue its stock publicly after the company struggled to find enough potential investors willing to pay the price the company had asked for. Read more.
