COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohioans are watching an unprecedented political fight play out over an effort to repeal a bailout of the state’s two nuclear plants.

We’ve become accustomed to annoying and costly state-issue campaigns flooding the airwaves, pushing for a certain outcome on Election Day. But what’s different this time is that backers of Ohio’s House Bill 6 are spending millions before the issue’s even made it to the ballot.

Veterans of Ohio state issue campaigns are reading the tea leaves and trying to figure out what to make of the ​increasingly aggressive pre-emptive onslaught, which includes:

And opponents have only been officially gathering those signatures since Aug. 30, when state officials gave them the green light. They have until Oct. 21, when HB6 is set to take effect, to get 266,000 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters needed to place the measure on the November 2020 ballot.

“I’m a disinterested observer. And the amount of money being spent around this issue is remarkable, and beyond anything in modern Ohio history,” said Mark Weaver, a Republican consultant who’s worked on more than a dozen state issue campaigns.

He added: “Most issue campaigns are frugal with their targeting dollars and frugal with their advertising dollars. That does not seem to be the case here.”

“I think they’re scared to death that this will go to the ballot,” said Dale Butland, a former chief of staff to Democratic Sen. John Glenn who has worked on several state issue campaigns. “So I think they’re pulling out all the stops to keep it from getting there.”

That’s not the case, according to Carlo LoParo, a Republican consultant working on the pro-HB6 campaign.

His previous experience includes working with Brandon Lynaugh, the consultant leading the repeal campaign, on a successful 2013 effort ​to block a repeal of internet cafe regulations from making it to the ballot. That campaign, backed by casino interests, included the limited use of petition blockers, according to press clips at the time.

LoParo said in an interview the intense pre-emptive campaigning this time around reflects the high stakes of the situation.

If the referendum is certified, he said, the law would be frozen from taking effect until the November 2020 election, when voters would decide whether to keep it. That would cut off the extra funding HB6 gives the nuclear plants — worth $900 million over six years — while the issue ​plays out. The subsidies are tacked onto customers bills, and offset by eliminating different fees that pay for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects.

LoParo said this delay “may” result in the plants’ closure.

“I would say that the campaign is now, because once the issue makes it to the ballot, the repealers have set out what they’ve set out to accomplish,” LoParo said.

He added: “This is not a discussion over energy policy in Ohio. This is a play for market share by natural gas companies that want to shut down their competition.”

Gene Pierce, a veteran Republican consultant working on the repeal campaign, in an interview argued the pre-emptive spending shows public sentiment is against the pro-HB6 side.

“I think what this says is that FirstEnergy has a lot of money at stake on this, and they’ll gladly spend everything they can,” he said. “Every dollar they think will get them closer to blocking the repeal of their billion-dollar gravy train, they’ll spend that money gladly.”

Records have shown FirstEnergy Solutions, the company that owns the two nuclear plants subsidized by HB6, spent millions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying the state legislature to push the measure through. Officials with the company have not denied funding the effort to block the referendum.

It’s unclear who’s funding the anti-HB 6 campaign, which has included oil-and-gas and environmental groups. Pierce said the group will disclose its donors when campaign-finance deadlines arrive.

The fight to define the issue

Pierce said the groups aligned with FirstEnergy Solutions are spending big to try to redirect public conversation around HB6 away from an unpopular framing – that it’s a bailout of a struggling, private company. He suspects they have polling that supports this approach.

“I have no doubt they think this is a smart tactic,” Pierce said. “But it’s also all sort of a bluff. A poker game where somebody pushes their chips out and says ‘I’m all in. How about you?'”

LoParo declined to discuss any polling the pro-HB6 side may have performed.

Public polling on the issue is scant. The American Petroleum Institute, an oil-and-gas association that’s affiliated with the repeal effort, released a poll in June they said showed 70 percent of Ohioans opposed HB6.

Here’s the question the poll asked: “Do you support or oppose charging Ohio utility customers a monthly fee to give FirstEnergy Solutions most of the $200 Million from this program every year?”

Opposition included 73% of Republicans, 73% of independents (who often lean to the right in Ohio) and 67% of Democrats.

The phrasing of the poll’s question didn’t bring up any of the most popular arguments for HB6 – the thousands of jobs ​the nuclear plants support, or the fact that ​they generate carbon-free electricity (disregarding the two coal plants the subsidy also props up.) But if the findings are trustworthy, they suggest the pro-HB6 groups have a tough sell to make if the issue gets before voters.

That likely explains why in recent weeks, as the repeal effort has ramped up, the pro-HB6 campaign has tried to reframe the debate around possible foreign ownership interests in the U.S. power grid, an argument that didn’t come up during the heated, costly lobbying effort that got the bill through the state legislature. The theme just happens to complement President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

The rationale? A power-plant developer associated with the repeal effort has taken loans from a Chinese bank. The same bank has invested in FirstEnergy, the company FirstEnergy Solutions is working to break away from through bankruptcy proceedings. ​

The recent mailers, sent at least to residents in the Columbus and Cleveland areas, falsely equated signing the repeal petitions with “giving your personal information to the Chinese government.” Signing a petition, which includes listing your name and address, actually is public record available to anyone.

These arrived at our house yesterday. Clearly the pro-HB6ers have enough money that they’re not being very discerning about who they’re sending these mailers to pic.twitter.com/gUxBGlGYtS — Jeremy Pelzer (@jpelzer) September 6, 2019

Butland, the Democratic consultant who worked for John Glenn, got a copy of the mailer at his Columbus home. He called the efforts to tie the repeal campaign to the Chinese communist government “over the top.”

“This is a breathtakingly dishonest campaign,” he said. “And that is what’s completely unique about this effort, I think.”

What’s House Bill 6 again?

HB6, signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in July, subsidizes two Ohio nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, as well as two coal plants — one in Ohio and another in Indiana — owned by Ohio utility companies. It offsets the fee by effectively eliminating a different fee that pays for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects.

Proponents say rescuing the plants protects thousands of jobs, maintains a major source of carbon-free electricity in Ohio and preserves energy diversity.

Opponents say HB6 is a corporate bailout for two mismanaged, privately owned plants, at the expense of consumers and Ohio’s renewable energy industry.

The issue doesn’t neatly fall down party lines.

Supporters include labor unions, nuclear power advocates and local officials from areas near the nuclear plants. Critics include the fossil-fuel industry, renewable energy advocates, consumer groups and some small-government activists.

The groups supporting HB6 call themselves Ohioans for Energy Security and Generation Now, which has ties to Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican. The repeal group calls itself Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts.