Top Husted Advisor lobbied on behalf of an Ohio utility company that profits from corrupt laws

When then-cf. Gov. Jon Husted was appointed to the U.S. Senate in early 2025, coming from an administration that includes many high-ranking officials with ties to the utilities lobby. In 2020, this administration was rocked by the largest bribery and money laundering scandal in Ohio history – all involving public utilities.

When Husted got to the Senate five years later, one of his first moves was to hire a longtime utility industry lobbyist as general counsel.

The lobbyist’s client made millions from a scheme that fueled the 2020 utilities scandal. The same lobbyist also represented a massive drug wholesaler that paid out millions to settle claims related to the inadvertent distribution of massive amounts of opioids in addiction-ravaged Ohio.

Ohioans utility bills are skyrocketing among A Data center boom subsidized by taxes AND generous director’s remuneration. The Trump administration did this too threatened billions in federal addiction treatment funding.

Husted’s decision to hire lobbyist Sean Dunn raises questions about whether the well-being of average Ohioans is Husted’s top priority.

“He is tone-deaf because he is an elected official who cannot see how cozy relationships can compromise his decision-making,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which advocates for accountable government. “Or he sees the benefits of these very cozy relationships.”

“Public Official”

Husted’s office did not respond to questions for this story. However, less than a month after taking office in 2025, Husted announced that Dunn would be his senior advisor and advisor.

“Dunn brings decades of experience as a lawyer and public official, focusing on technology, utilities, workforce and a variety of legislative issues,” Husted’s office said in a statement written declaration. “He has served in roles in the Office of Chief Legal Counsel to the Ohio Governor, the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee, the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, and the Ohio Senate Majority Caucus.”

The statement did not say Dunn was a lobbyist for the initiative Virginia-based AESwhich has 527,000 customers in the Ohio region, including Dayton.

According to disclosures filed with the Ohio Lobbying Activity Center, Dunn started lobbying for AES in 2009 and it was like that until February 2025.

At the time, Dunn was lobbying the state Legislature and executive branch on numerous measures related to Ohio House Bill 6, a 2019 bill that resulted from what one federal prosecutor said was “possibly the largest bribery and money laundering scheme in Ohio history”

Akron-based FirstEnergy was at the center of a scandal in which $61 million in bribes secured $1.3 billion in customer bailouts.

It was passed by the Legislature and immediately signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine, in whose administration Husted was second in command.

The position is currently held by former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford a sentence of 20 years in federal prison for his participation in the program. The state trial of former FirstEnergy executives ended Monday hung jury earlier this year.

$77 million to bail out a wealthy utility

In addition to FirstEnergy, other Ohio utilities also benefited greatly from the scandal-riddled HB 6 bill.

The bill was intended to promote tidy energy because it saved two nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy. But this challenged Ohio’s energy efficiency standards also created separate financial aid for two aging coal-fired generators owned by a consortium of other Ohio utilities, including Columbus-based AEP and AES, which Dunn lobbied for.

The group was called the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation and was one of its 71-year-old coal-fired power plants It’s not even in Ohio, it’s in Indiana.

Bailouts Act grants stopped flowing to FirstEnergy after the FBI began making arrests in early 2020. But money continued to flow to other utilities for years while those utilities — and apparently Dunn as a lobbyist — fought to repeal them.

It wasn’t until May 2025 that DeWine finally signed the bill ending the subsidies.

By then, AES’s share in them was $77 million, according to AES grant scorecard operated by the Ohio Office of Consumer Counsel. That’s part of it $670 million in grants paid by customers who joined the consortium since 2017.

As an AES representative, Dunn registered to lobby for HB 6 – presumably in support of it – disclosures show. And he continued to lobby numerous bills which would eliminate coal subsidies after the scandal broke. AES management testified against their.

Although AES cited poverty to justify its participation in customer-funded grants, the company found a way to to pay CEO Andrés Głuski $9 million last year.

Bribery and bailout scandal

Husted had his own experience with the massive bailout scandal.

Emails came to featherlight showing that shortly after he agreed to be DeWine’s running mate in 2017, lobbied DeWine to support a massive bailout of utilities.

And in 2024, Husted wouldn’t say whether he knew about it FirstEnergy was the source of $1 million in murky money contributions to a group supporting him when he was still fighting DeWine for the Republican Party’s nomination for governor.

There was also a meeting that raised many questions.

On December 18, 2018, FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling met with Governor-elect DeWine and Lieutenant Governor-elect Husted at the Columbus Athletic Club.

They discussed whether management wanted to Sam Randazzo, former FirstEnergy consultantto be Ohio’s primary utility regulator.

Jones and Dowling then drove a mile to Randazzo’s apartment and negotiated what FirstEnergy later stated. bribe of $4.3 million. Six weeks later, DeWine appointed Randazzo as chairman of the Public Utilities Commission.

Even though it was supposed to police utilities on behalf of consumers, Randazzo helped write corrupt financial aid legislation. Randazzo faces state and federal indictments in 2024 took his own life by hanging.

Other people with close ties to FirstEnergy also played significant roles in the DeWine-Husted administration.

Legislative Affairs Director Dan McCarthy was a lobbyist for FirstEnergy when he founded one of major murky money groups through which FirstEnergy would transfer multi-million-dollar bribes. Shortly thereafter, he joined the DeWine-Husted administration.

And DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, she was the wife of a former FirstEnergy lobbyist who, according to a state indictment, received a $10,000 loan from Randazzo several years before DeWine took office.

The administration said Dawson knew about FirstEnergy’s massive payment to Randazzo but didn’t tell DeWine about it for almost two years. Late last year she he still worked for DeWine.

Different lobbying

In addition to Dunn’s connection to AES, he also lobbied for Dublin-based Cardinal Healthone of the three largest prescription drug wholesalers in the United States. Dunn was with the company from 2009 to 2019.

Federal enforcement actions and government lawsuits against the drug wholesaler alleged that Cardinal often ignored “grossly suspicious orders” while shipping billions of opioid pills to Ohio and other U.S. states.

In 2021, Cardinal and two other giant wholesalers agreed to pay $808 million to resolve the state’s allegations that corporate negligence caused Ohio’s raging addiction crisis.

The disclosures also show that Dunn earned $895,000 in the 15 months before joining Husted’s team and that his antique company owed him between $1 million and $5 million.

Ohioans

According to many, the average household income in Ohio is $72,000 per year are crushed By costs for utilities, prescription drugs, gasoline, health care, and groceries.

Husted’s office was asked what the senator is doing to alleviate the affordability crisis and explain his decision to hire as general counsel someone who became wealthy by lobbying for some of the industries causing the crisis.

It didn’t respond.

Common Cause’s Turcer said Dunn’s hiring and lack of response may be a consequence of Gerry’s manipulation and long-term one-party rule in Ohio.

“When power is really entrenched, (leaders) don’t ask themselves the questions that voters would ask them,” she said. “They just don’t challenge themselves to do better for their constituents because they think they’re anointed, not elected.”

Husted will face former Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown in the November election. The Cook Political Report assesses the race throw.