Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno on SiriusXM Breitbart News Saturday His opponent, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), has chosen to attack rather than provide substance, saying his record is “so terrible.”
Breitbart News Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle asked Moreno, a successful businessman who built one of the largest auto dealerships in the United States, about Brown's attacks on him over a wage lawsuit at a Massachusetts dealership he once owned.
The Republican Senate candidate said the lawsuit, brought by two former employees, came after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in a separate case unrelated to Moreno that commission salespeople are entitled to overtime pay, and that the ruling applied retroactively across the state.
“Sherrod Brown has never held any other position than an elected official, so naturally he's going to criticize anyone who has a real job that isn't paid for by taxpayers and has no accountability, so let's get that out of the way right away,” Moreno said.
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He detailed how he grew his business from one dealership to 15 dealerships and ended up with 30 brands across the company.
“I was successful because I had great people in the company,” he said. “I knew my job was to take care of my people, and the people I worked with would take care of my customers, and that formula worked.”
“We are one of the most awarded dealership groups in the country, not just because we sell a lot of cars, but because we take care of our team members and customers,” he added. “In fact, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has recognized my company as one of the best places to work in Northeast Ohio several years in a row.”
Moreno said Brown was “obsessed with one particular case that occurred at a dealership in Massachusetts where a furniture store salesperson sued the store, alleging that commissioned salespeople were entitled to overtime pay in a case that had nothing to do with me.”
The case went all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which ruled that the commission salespeople were entitled to overtime pay retroactively, long after Moreno sold the dealership, affecting all commission dealers in the state.
“Incidentally, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled a year after I sold the dealership that commission-based salesmen are entitled to overtime pay in Massachusetts. Of course, we would have followed the law that existed at the time, so that was totally fine,” he recounted.
“But they applied the ruling retroactively, so they went back and said, 'If you don't agree with their interpretation of the wage law, you're owed this full overtime pay.'” “Every commission business in Massachusetts was affected, not just my business, whether it's a furniture store or a car dealership,” he added.
Following the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling, two of Moreno's former employees filed a lawsuit against him.
“In the four years that I owned that dealership, we probably had 60 salesmen,” he said, “and, by the way, two of them were the worst performing salesmen in terms of showing up to work on time, and they were making $150,000 to $200,000 a year. If they showed up to work 35 hours a week, that was a big deal. In fact, one of them got fired for not showing up to work on time. They sued me.”
“Of course, an ultra-liberal jury in Boston heard this case for a week and in seven to 10 minutes decided exactly how much overtime pay these two salesmen should have received,” Moreno continued. “It was $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 for them combined over three and a half years. They awarded them that amount, and of course in Massachusetts you get exorbitant penalties and attorney fees. So they awarded them $400,000.”
Moreno said the process shows the importance of Supreme Court elections in states with elections like Ohio, emphasizing that “if we put radical lunatics on the Supreme Court, they will destroy this country.”
Brown added that his “record is so terrible” that he has to resort to spurious attacks instead of focusing on the substance.
“His record is open borders, high prices, destabilization around the world, attacks on American energy and failure to stand up to China,” Moreno said. “That's how we win this election: Focus on that.”
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