Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder may soon be expelled from the statehouse after lawmakers from the Democratic party and his own Republican party debuted resolutions to remove the representative on Tuesday for his alleged involvement in a $60 million bribery scheme.
Per The Columbus Dispatch, Householder was first arrested on July 2020 following accusations that the former speaker had accepted $61 million in donations as bribes in order to promote a $1 billion bailout to Ohio's two nuclear power plants, which are owned by Akron-based Energy Harbor, formerly FirstEnergy Solutions. The former speaker has maintained his innocence since his arrest.
The bailout may have been dropped from the bill it was initially part of, but Householder's charges of bribery and racketeering remain, with Democrat Rep. Jeff Crossman, of Parma, and Republican Rep. Brian Stewart, of Ashville, both filing resolutions to remove Householder from the House on the same day.
"We realized this wasn't going to start unless Democrats took the lead," Crossman told the paper. "They were going to file something weeks ago and then it never happened."
If they want to expel Householder, Stewart and Crossman will need to secure at least two-thirds vote from the house, meaning they'll have to secure a minimum of 66 commitments from the body's 64 GOP members and 35 Democrats.
"Rep. [Mark] Fraizer has had this resolution and has been working on it and talking about it with our colleagues for months," Stewart said. "We've been trying to respect the deliberative process ... but we believe that the time for waiting and talking and deliberating is done. It's time to bring the issue for a vote."
Frazier, R-Newark, was initially working with Stewart to draft a resolution against Householder. Now, Crossman and Steward both agree that Householder can only be removed from office through bipartisan collaboration. The Ashville representative stated he believed his resolution would have support among Repubicans.
Stewart tweeted a draft of the resolution that said the following:
Representative Householder, along with other members of a criminal enterprise, conspired to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity, including bribery and laundering of monetary instruments, to secretly funnel and launder more than sixty million dollars from a corporation to be used for the personal and political benefit of Representative Householder and the other members of the criminal enterprise, including Representative Householder's efforts to ensure passage of legsilation providing over one billion dollars in sbusidies benefitting the corporation that ifnance his activities...
ABC6 reported that Current Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Bob Cupp, who replaced Householder in the wake of his arrest, added the following in his own statement on Wednesday:
The members of the Ohio House have had extensive conversations among themselves and some in public on whether to expel the former speaker, who is under federal indictment. There is a difference in opinion among members. Some believe the court criminal proceedings should be allowed to play out first. Others believe Mr. Householder’s conduct, whether ultimately judged criminal or not, meets the Ohio constitutional standard of disorderly conduct and justifies expulsion for the reasons because, at a minimum, the conduct was grossly unethical, a federal grand jury found probable cause to believe it was criminal and three indicted co-conspirators have already pled guilty to the conspiracy. I have consistently maintained that Larry Householder should resign from the Ohio House of Representatives. The resolutions filed will receive the appropriate process according to House rules.