Thread by @AlexCKaufman

Ohio is about to be the 14th state to pass a law threatening fossil fuel protesters with long jail sentences and crushing fines.

The bill holds groups like churches liable for individual protesters, and could bankrupt tiny congregations in Appalachia.

huffpost.com/entry/ohio-fos…

It's yet another version of the ALEC-designed bill that started appearing in state legislatures after #NoDAPL. The legislation is deeply unpopular. Yet roughly half a dozen states quietly passed it into law since the pandemic began. It's meant to have a chilling effect.

Here's what one Ohio reverend told me of the bill:

“The fact that this could have an impact on some tiny little church in the middle of Appalachia that’s trying to protect its people from pollution really pisses me off, which I realize is not very theological language."

Last winter, Ohio lawmakers held hearings on the bill. 171 opponent testified against it. 9 spoke in favor. The legislation went dormant, making activists think they'd won. But on the last day of the legislative session this week, lawmakers furtively voted to pass it.

The advocates had no idea the vote was coming, and couldn't even go down to the state house to protest b/c a few Ohio lawmakers are anti-maskers (despite having a couple of colleagues in the hospital with COVID right now).

The lead sponsor of the bill, Republican state Sen. Frank Hoagland, met with several Koch and Big Oil lobbyists.

But he personally stands to profit off the bill's passage, too.

He owns two private security firms in Ohio that specialize in "threats to the oil and gas industry.”

(The photo with Pence is actually from the website of one of Hoagland's private security firms.)

The reaction from one reader in Ohio already: "I live here in Ohio,I have to admit,this is the first time I heard that something like this was being not only discussed,but passed into a law."

Read the story here: huffpost.com/entry/ohio-fos…