Incoming Ohio AG says he’ll put pocketbook, paycheck issues front and center

As part of Tuesday’s blue tsunami, Democrat John Kulewicz was elected to be Ohio’s next attorney general. He says he plans to make a priority of issues that affect the livelihood of Ohioans, many of whom are struggling.

As the state’s lawyer and its top law enforcement officer, the Ohio attorney general has sweeping powers. The office has 1,400 employees working in 30 distinct sections, from antitrust to workers compensation.

Kulewicz, a 72-year-old graduate of Yale Law School, comes to the office after winning by less than a percentage point over Republican Keith Faber. But he said he was elected by voters seeking a change.

It’s no secret that under solidly Republican rule, Ohio state government has been plagued by several high-profile corruption scandals over the past 15 years. And anger over corruption was a big factor in Democrats’ resounding success on Tuesday night.

“There was a general sense among the people that we need to correct things through these elections and that it involved bringing in new people,” Kulewicz said in a phone interview.

He added that he visited all 88 counties and tried to explain to voters that the attorney general could help them by making things fairer. 

“I focused on the economic responsibilities of the attorney general and what that could mean to people in Ohio,” he said.

Across the country, voters appeared to see a nexus between their own economic struggles and public corruption that enriched connected special interests. Between 2018 and 2020 Ohio was a case study.

Akron-based FirstEnergy paid $61 million in bribes to elect a Republican majority that made Larry Householder of Glenford speaker. From that perch he shepherded a $1.3 billion ratepayer-funded bailout for the utility.

After the FBI broke open the conspiracy, Householder got a 20-year prison sentence on two others who were implicated died by suicide.

As attorney general, Kulewicz would have to oversee a second state trial of FirstEnergy’s top executives after the first ended in a hung jury. So he’s limited in what he can say about the case before taking office.

But he said as a general matter, corruption is the consumer issue that voters take it to be.

“No. 1, it’s bad for the economy,” Kulewicz said. “We all pay a price for it, and I think that finally people got fed up enough with it and believed that it’s time for somebody who’s going to clean up the state government.” 

He added that he also wanted to fight for consumers on other fronts, such as “consumer fraud, wage theft, monopoly pricing, utility rate discrimination; the things that hurt our paychecks or our pocketbooks.”

Ohio has a strong, state-level antitrust law, and the attorney general has a division tasked with enforcing it. 

In 2023, former AG Dave Yost used the law to sue a giant health conglomerate, accusing it of unlawfully driving up the cost of prescription drugs purchased by the state. It remains pending.

Kulewicz said he also will use the Antitrust Division on behalf of Ohio consumers.

“The attorney general has broad investigative and subpoena power when it comes to the enforcement of the antitrust laws, and I intend to use that to the fullest extent,” he said. “I want to focus on sectors of the economy that deal with the necessities of our lives. Our food. Our fuel. Those kinds of things.”

After President Donald Trump signed a Republican bill slashing Medicaid spending in July 2025, his administration and Republican state-level officials started hyping allegations of Medicaid fraud, often in blue states. Critics called it an attempt to refocus voters’ anger over Trump’s healthcare cuts and rising healthcare costs.

When U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche came to Ohio in July to tout the Trump anti-fraud effort, no mention was made of health conglomerates that Yost has accused of overbilling Ohio by tens of millions of dollars.

Kulewicz said he wants to determine what is fact and what is fiction in the Trump administration claims.

“The compelling thing to me is that there are allegations of billions of dollars of Medicaid provider fraud, but the prosecutions only amount to millions of dollars,” he said. “So there’s a big discrepancy. I want to find out why.”

As part of the FirstEnergy scandal, Gov.-elect Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov.-elect Jon Husted met with the company’s top executives on Dec. 18, 2018 to discuss whether Sam Randazzo would be acceptable to be chairman of the industry regulator, the Public Utility Commission of Ohio. The executives drove straight from that meeting to Randazzo’s German Village condo and negotiated a $4.3 million bribe, the company later conceded.

From his perch as chairman, Randazzo helped write the corrupt bailout legislation. After he was charged, he died by suicide.

But even before that episode, the PUCO had a long history of granting utilities billions of dollars worth of upcharges that the Ohio Supreme Court later deemed illegal. Even so, the regulator didn’t force the utilities to give the money back to ratepayers.

Kulewicz said he would use the powers of the AGs office to ensure that the PUCO protects Ohio ratepayers.

“There are two things the attorney general can do,” he said. “No. 1, make sure that we appoint a Consumers’ Counsel board that’s going to name an effective Ohio Consumers’ Counsel to protect the interests of residential ratepayers.

“Secondly, the attorney general represents the state of Ohio, which is a consumer of utilities and has standing to challenge the fairness of the rates.”

As a candidate, Kulewicz filed a complaint with the Ohio Inspector General about possible conflicts of interest at JobsOhio, the state’s quasi-private economic development authority. The chairman of the JobsOhio board is a lobbyist with clients that have received millions from JobsOhio and even more from the state.

But prior to taking office, Kulewicz was circumspect about how he might deal with the controversial agency.

“The complaint that I filed with the inspector general speaks for itself,” he said. “But to the extent that there are other alleged conflicts in the state government, I want to explore those and point them out where necessary and do something about them.”