This latest episode includes Rep. Derrick Van Orden (WI-03) breaks his pledge, Holly Robichaud interviews USTL State Chair for Ohio, Bernie Moreno,and more.
Contact your legislators and ask them to support term limits at termlimits.com/takeaction.
Holly Robichaud: What’s happening in Washington this week? Well, as I previously mentioned, Representative Ralph Norman has sponsored House Joint Resolution 11. We’re now up to 70 co-sponsors on that piece of legislation. That’s right, 70 members have gotten on board. Please call your representative and ask them to co-sponsor Ralph Norman’s bill. In Wisconsin, we’re calling out Representative Derrick Van Orden for breaking his pledge to co-sponsor the legislation. He’s failed to do so.
Holly Robichaud: Hi, this is Holly Robichaud with Breaking News on Term Limits. The 2024 presidential race is underway. Congressional term limits is bound to be one of the major issues this time. United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley has entered the race. In her announcement speech, she called for congressional term limits and made it one of her major issues in her platform. We thank her for her support and we’re hoping all of the candidates are going to get on board with congressional term limits.
Nikki Haley: Today, our enemies think that the American era has passed. They’re wrong. America is not past our prime. It’s just that our politicians are past theirs. China’s dictators wanna cover the world in communist tyranny, and we’re the only ones who can stop them. But let me be clear, we won’t win the fight for the 21st century if we keep trusting politicians from the 20th century. In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire. We’ll have term limits for Congress.
Holly Robichaud: Up next, we’ll be speaking with Bernie Moreno. Bernie is a well-known name, both in Ohio and nationally. Bernie truly encapsulates the American dream. He started his career as an intern at General Motors. Less than 20 years later, Bernie was offered the opportunity to purchase the most underperforming Mercedes-Benz dealership in the country. Bernie sold everything, borrowed the college tuition for his nieces and nephews, from his sister. Even his mother mortgaged her house.
Holly Robichaud: Bernie purchased that dealership and in the first year turned it around. In over 10 years, the Bernie Moreno companies expanded to 15 buildings, 30 brands, four states, and hired nearly a thousand Ohioans. It became one of the nation’s largest and most successful dealerships. Bernie sold in 2010, most of the car dealerships and launched a new technology company start-up called Ownum. In addition to US Term Limits, Bernie has served as a volunteer virtually on every significant nonprofit board in Cleveland, including chairing the Cleveland State Board. We’re proud to have him on our team.
Holly Robichaud: Well, I’m glad to have with us today Bernie Moreno, who is our Ohio chair. Thanks for joining us today.
Bernie Moreno: Thanks for having me.
Holly Robichaud: I have a couple questions for you today, if you don’t mind. What made you decide to get involved with Term Limits?
Bernie Moreno: Well, as you may know, Holly, I’m a business owner, not a politician. And I firmly believe that our founders never intended to have a political class in this country. And that our founders wanted people who did something in their lives, went and served their country, and then went home and lived under the very laws that they set. They weren’t intended to be in DC forever. And instead what we have is people that go to DC, and make DC their home for their entire adult lives. They profit off their positions and then what they’ve done, let’s be honest, they have squandered our country’s resources.
Holly Robichaud: They sure have. I know that you’ve been traveling throughout Ohio. What are people telling you out there? How do they feel about term limits?
Bernie Moreno: Oh, they’re very much in favor of term limits. People in Ohio are really smart. They intuitively know that DC is broken. They know that the only way to fix it is to send different types of people in DC and so they’re very, very much, supporting term limits. They know that we can’t send career… Same career politicians who always think about their next assignment instead of thinking of the job at hand. And so they know that term limits is one of the key ways to make that change happen.
Holly Robichaud: I know you put together a great team on term limits in Ohio. Can you tell us about that team and how you did it?
Bernie Moreno: Yeah, absolutely. So, when I ran for Senate, I had the opportunity to travel all 88 counties in Ohio. I met a lot of great people. And so in meeting all those people, the one unifying of many, but absolutely unifying force was this desire to change politics as we know it. And so I met a lot of people who were very, very, very energized around term limits. So people like Hayden Ferguson, who, when I met him was an 18 year old, new college student in Green County that’s very, very active. He’s been helping pass out the petitions, have meetings, talking about it.
Bernie Moreno: Met Ida Haber, who’s my age, somebody who’s up here in northeast Ohio, a businesswoman. But she’s very passionate about this. So she got engaged, Barbara Marlow with different meetings. We have the support of two amazing state legislators. Rob McColley from the northwest part of the state, been great. He understands that we have to kind of get back the constitutional balance between the federal and state government. And then Jay Edwards down in Athens County. So we have the state geographically really mapped out well, that’s given us the strength to get this done.
Holly Robichaud: Wow, that’s great. What do you think your chances are in Ohio?
Bernie Moreno: I think we’re gonna get it done. I think we’re gonna get it done. Ohio was at the leading edge of term limits a long time ago. So our own legislators are term limited. And again, they’re familiar with it. It should be something that we get done. We got the budget coming up, which would be probably the only thing that could interfere, ’cause it’s just a lot of work. But I’m confident that we’ll get the term limits resolution passed.
Holly Robichaud: That’s great news. Now, I know that term limits played a role with J. D. Vance, that he signed it, his opponent didn’t sign it. Do you think that’s a winning issue going forward for people running for the Senate?
Bernie Moreno: Yeah, absolutely. I mean J. D. Vance is the real deal. There’s not a lot of politicians like him. And I think he’s gonna set that example, right? Because here’s somebody who’s outside the political system, a true conservative, he’s actually doing the things he campaigned on, which we should think isn’t remarkable, but it is. And he made term limits a cornerstone of his campaign. And he’s fully supportive of the term limits resolution in the United States Senate. And it did help him cross the finish line because it was a stark contrast to a career lifelong politician which was who we ran against. So that contrast between somebody new outside the system, who supported term limits, and a lifelong career politician like Tim Ryan, I think is one of the many reasons J. D. Was very successful in Ohio.
Holly Robichaud: So Ohio has got another major race coming up in 2024. Senator Brown has been in office for 33 years. Do you think term limits will also play the same role in that race?
Bernie Moreno: Term limits will play a huge role. As you know, better than anybody, incumbents are really hard to defeat. But when you contrast what people want, which is people who are outside the political system that aren’t corrupted by DC that wanna get things done with somebody who’s been there for 33 years. Imagine what it would be like to live in that DC bubble for that long. It’s not good for the brain, right? You can’t connect to normal everyday Ohioans. And so people will see that. He’s gonna have the media on his side for sure, for certain, he’s gonna have big tech at his side. He’s gonna have the power of incumbency at his side.
Bernie Moreno: But I think with the right kind of messaging, contrasting an outsider, outside the political system, who wants to go there and only be in that office, not looking for the next assignment, but rather just go to be a senator and nothing else, and nothing beyond that versus somebody who’s always had aspirations. What’s interesting about Sherrod Brown is when he got to the Congress a long time ago, before tax messaging was invented, by the way, that’s how long ago it was, he was all for term limits. He was making fun of… He made fun of all these old congressmen as he called them, old senators, old dinosaurs that hung around too long. And here he is, of course, now fully against term limits because he’s become the very old dinosaur that he talked about back in 1993.
Holly Robichaud: Wow, he’s been there for that long.
Bernie Moreno: Yeah, and 18 years before that in the state legislature. So he’s been in politics since 1975.
Holly Robichaud: Wow. He spent his entire life in politics.
Bernie Moreno: Entire life.
Holly Robichaud: I think I was in third grade in 1975. Wow. That’s a long time.
Bernie Moreno: It’s a long time. And again, that’s not what our founders had in mind. I think our founders would have put term limits in the constitution, but it was so foreign an idea to them. Because the idea to them is that, “Hey, we have to restrict how long you’re gonna be in DC,” when back in 1789, they couldn’t find somebody to go to our capital, to Philadelphia at the time, not in DC. They couldn’t find anybody who would have the indignity to do that. And so it didn’t even cross their mind, but I think if they saw people like Sherrod Brown in politics like that their whole lives, they just wouldn’t believe it.
Holly Robichaud: Yeah, well they didn’t envision PACs and lobbyists and things like that.
Bernie Moreno: No, that’s for sure.
Holly Robichaud: Hey, Bernie, I wanna thank you for joining us today. I know we’re gonna be hearing a lot more from you and we wish you the best of luck in Ohio.
Bernie Moreno: Well, thank you so much, Holly. I appreciate it.
Holly Robichaud: Thank you.
Holly Robichaud: National polling data shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans want congressional term limits. We have the momentum and we have the people support, but we can’t do it alone. We need your help. Please go to termlimits.com and get involved today. And make sure to share our breaking news every week with your friends. This is Holly Robichaud with Breaking News on Term Limits.