COLUMBUS, Ohio - A group trying to get a referendum issue on the ballot overturning Ohio House Bill 6, the nuclear plant bailout bill, won a partial court victory late Friday.

U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus granted a temporary order blocking part of state law that requires some paid petition circulators to submit a form disclosing their identities or face criminal penalties. The referendum group, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, filed a suit alleging that the requirement is a burden to the First Amendment’s right to free speech.

Sargus’ order prevents enforcement of that requirement for 14 days “against paid individuals whose primary function is circulating a petition for signatures for a statewide referendum.”

Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts maintains that the disclosure forms its circulators have filed have been used by the campaigns that support HB6 – specifically Generation Now -- to find its employees and make offers to get them to quit their referendum efforts. There have also been allegations of harassment and aggressive confrontations, including one that led to a criminal charge, by Generation Now workers toward Ohioans Against Corporate Bailout workers.

Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts is struggling to meet the Oct. 21 legal deadline to submit the 265,774 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters needed to place HB6 on the November 2020 ballot.

HB6, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in July, raises $900 million over six years for two Ohio nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, and $120 million for two coal plants — one in Ohio and another in Indiana — owned by Ohio utility companies. The subsidy is paid for by fees tacked onto Ohioans’ electrical bills — an average of $1.50 for residential users and up to $1,500 a month for commercial and industrial users. It offsets the new fee by slashing a different fee that pays for renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects.