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Columbus, OH – Bernie Moreno made it clear he doesn’t believe the minimum wage should exist. Moreno’s comments follow reports that he has faced over a dozen lawsuits for refusing to pay his employees the wages they earned and went so far as to destroy evidence he was legally required to keep to get out of paying them.

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American Journal: Republican Bernie Moreno opposes existence of minimum wage

Jesse Valentine 

February 23, 2024

• U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno doesn’t believe there should be a minimum wage.

• The moderator asked point blank if the minimum wage should exist.

• “The markets are the best way to determine what wages should be,” Moreno said. “As somebody who has employed thousands of people here in Ohio, a good business owner knows that you pay good benefits, you pay good wages, you get good people. At the end of the day the market will flush that out.”

• Moreno’s claims about being a good employer conflict with his record.

• Between 2017 and 2022, at least seventeen of Moreno’s employees sued him for wage theft, claiming Moreno failed to properly compensate them for overtime work. In 2021, a judge sanctioned Moreno for destroying financial documents pertinent to the allegations. A jury ultimately ruled that Moreno had stiffed the original plaintiffs and Moreno was ordered to pay them more than $400,000 in damages.

• Moreno settled most of the additional wage theft lawsuits out of court in the months preceding his senate campaign. 

• In 2023, Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced legislation to crack down on wage theft. In 2021, Brown celebrated a Biden administration rule raising the minimum wage for federal workers to $15.00 an hour. In a statement, Brown called for raising the minimum wage for all workers.

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Associated Press: “Moreno sat on two government boards…each of those public entities boosted Moreno’s blockchain business while he served.”

Columbus, OH – Bernie Moreno exploited his “inside” political connections, hefty campaign contributions, and public board appointments to secure government contracts that “boosted” his blockchain businesses – leading Moreno to ultimately cash out for “at least $5 million.” 

AP: Bernie Moreno running for Senate as outsider, but public entities he served boosted his business

February 7, 2024

• But Moreno has, at times, served on the inside. Shortly before he entered politics, he sat on two government boards — one in Columbus, one in Cleveland. An Associated Press review found that each of those public entities boosted Moreno’s blockchain business while he served.”

• When he cashed out his shares in blockchain company Ownum in April 2023 […] Moreno reported they were worth at least $5 million. Some of the company’s earliest votes of confidence had come from InnovateOhio and MetroHealth.

• Moreno was appointed to the InnovateOhio Executive Board by Lt. Gov. Jon Husted in April 2019. 

• Moreno and Husted already had a history….Moreno contributed a combined $20,000 to [Husted’s] political campaigns, state campaign finance reports show. Moreno gave another $25,000 to the DeWine-Husted for Ohio gubernatorial campaign in June 2018 — shortly after Ownum was incorporated.

• At the time of Moreno’s appointment [to InnovateOhio], the company had just announced its first product: a paperless blockchain option for vehicle titling, called CHAMPtitles. Moreno already had made it known that Ownum would be pitching CHAMPtitles to Ohio, among other states.

• Husted said the office had received a “proposal” — he didn’t mention from whom — for the state to work with the private sector to modify Ohio’s vehicle titling system. CHAMPtitles tweeted the “exciting news.”

• Something like Husted’s backing — or the later support of MetroHealth’s CEO — held potential financial benefits for the company…

• …Armond Budish nominated Moreno to the MetroHealth board of trustees in September 2019. Moreno had donated $5,000 to Budish’s re-election bid in July 2018, county campaign finance records show.

• Six months later, Ownum’s second product, Vital Chain — which provided blockchain birth and death certificates — landed MetroHealth as its first client. 

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Ohio Can Protect Fundamental Freedoms This Year, Flip its Supreme Court

Columbus, OH – In case you missed it, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters penned an op-ed for Cincinnati.com taking Judge Megan Shanahan to task for making her anti-abortion views crystal clear as she runs for the Ohio Supreme Court. Judge Megan Shanahan has taken to social media to brag about her endorsements from the very same anti-abortion groups who led the opposition against Issue 1 − Cincinnati Right to Life and Centers for Christian Virtue. With Issue 1 and other abortion rights questions set to come before the court in the near future, Ohioans can’t afford another political actor like Shanahan on the State’s highest court. 

“She’s (Shanahan) ‘proud’ to be endorsed by anti-abortion groups that support her campaigns, financially and otherwise, and who continue working to try to ban abortion in Ohio. She’s shown her political prejudice. She clearly can’t be trusted to be fair and impartial. And she belongs nowhere near the Ohio Supreme Court,” writes Chair Walters. 

Ohio is the only state in the country with the opportunity to flip its state supreme court this year. And while abortion rights are clearly on the ballot in 2024, it’s not the only issue that will likely come before the supreme court. Redistricting reform, voters’ access to the ballot and marijuana legalization are all critical issues that will likely be decided by the court Ohioans elect this November. 

Read more from Chair Walters’ op-ed HERE and below: 

• Last November, Ohioans went to the polls and overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion rights. Voters made clear to out-of-touch Republican politicians that they didn’t want the government interfering in personal, private medical decisions that should be made between a woman and her doctor. Thankfully, Issue 1 passed by wide bipartisan margins, enshrining reproductive rights in Ohio’s Constitution.

• We know that extremists in our GOP-gerrymandered legislature are going to pass bills that are anti-abortion and anti-women in an effort to achieve their long-standing goal of banning abortion in Ohio. And when we fight back, the last line of defense will be the Ohio Supreme Court. Unfortunately, one of the candidates running as a Republican has already made her views on the issue crystal clear.

• Judge Megan Shanahan has taken to social media to brag about her endorsements from the very same anti-abortion groups who led the opposition against Issue 1 − Cincinnati Right to Life and Centers for Christian Virtue. Judge Shanahan once admonished another judge for sharing her opinions on a political issue when she was running for office, writing: “What’s not fine, is having strongly formed opinions about how cases should be decided before they reach your courtroom.”

• Shanahan has broken her own rules. She’s “proud” to be endorsed by anti-abortion groups that support her campaigns, financially and otherwise, and who continue working to try to ban abortion in Ohio. She’s shown her political prejudice. She clearly can’t be trusted to be fair and impartial. And she belongs nowhere near the Ohio Supreme Court. 

• Time and again, the current GOP majority on the Ohio Supreme Court has shown they’re willing to put politics over people. If we don’t flip the court this year, extremists in the state legislature will continue to pass out-of-touch policies that move our state backward yet are rubber-stamped by Republicans on the Supreme Court looking out for their political allies. 

• Ohioans deserve a court that is fair, impartial and follows the rule of law, not partisans that look out for their donors and political allies at the expense of Ohio families. This November, let’s reject Republican radicalism and put people over politics by reelecting Justice Michael Donnelly and Justice Melody Stewart and electing Judge Lisa Forbes to the Ohio Supreme Court. 

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“None of the three can be trusted and should not be elected.”

Columbus, OH – Bernie Moreno, Frank LaRose, and Matt Dolan “will not stand up for their constituents’ decision concerning abortion rights” and would overrule Ohioans by voting for a national abortion ban. 

Read more:

Columbus Dispatch: Letter: They will give you lip service while rejecting your vote

Marvin Renik, Bexley

March 5, 2024 

• In last November’s election Ohioans approved a state constitutional amendment protecting the right to an abortion in Ohio. 

• Given the chance to express their position on this issue the vote was not even close. Despite this clear reflection of a significant majority of Ohio’s voters, the three Republican candidates who are running for the privilege of representing Ohioans in the U.S. Senate will not stand up for their constituents’ decision concerning abortion rights.  

• In the article, State Senator Mike Dolan said a federal abortion ban is not off the table if policies like the state he wants to represent become more common. 

• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said he would support a “bare minimum” national abortion ban. Bernie Moreno indicates that he supports a…federal abortion ban. 

• …it is clear that if any of [the candidates] are elected to the Senate he will turn his back on the wishes of a clear majority of the people he would be charged with representing.

• None of the three can be trusted and should not be elected.

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Columbus, OH – A new report from WKYC laid out how Bernie Moreno, Frank LaRose, and Matt Dolan are “all on record as having been opposed to” Issue 1 and its protections for IVF. Not only did the entire field work to defeat Issue 1 and its IVF protections, the field now wants to overrule the majority of Ohioans who voted for Issue 1 by supporting a national abortion ban. 

WATCH MORE FROM WKYC

Stephanie Haney, WKYC: “And we do know that Moreno, LaRose, and Dolan are all on record as having been opposed to the reproductive rights amendment that is currently in our constitution that Ohio voters – a majority voted for – in November…” [3:37, 2/28/24]

Stephanie Haney, WKYC: “Another Moreno quote from October 1, 2021: ‘I’m 100% pro life with no exceptions.’” [3:10, 2/28/24] 

Stephanie Haney, WKYC: “The Republican party…they’re having a hard time reconciling their anti-abortion stance with this stance in support of IVF.” [2:20, 2/28/24] 

SEE ALSO: After Voting Against Protections for IVF, Moreno Calls Fertility Protections “Non-Issue,” Says Federal Protections “Unnecessary”; As Senate Votes On IVF Protections, Ohioans Should Know Moreno, LaRose, Dolan Already Voted Against Protections For Fertility Treatments; REMINDER: Moreno, LaRose, Dolan Already Voted Against Protections For IVF; Moreno, LaRose and Dolan Oppose Protecting Access to IVF

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