Tuesday on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Job Creators Network president and CEO Alfredo Ortiz discussed his small business group’s lawsuit against Major League Baseball for moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta over Georgia’s new voter laws.
Ortiz, who has warned the change in location would “cost upwards of $100 million of economic damages” to Georgia,” including many minority-owned businesses, said his group’s intention is “to right a very, very bad wrong.”
“We tried everything that we could think of to try to get Commissioner Manfred’s attention. We sprung into action four days after that move actually happened. We put up two billboards in New York’s Times Square right down from his offices, and nothing. We took a full-page ad out in the New York Times trying to address this issue, and nothing. You know, we sent letters to his offices — nothing. We even sent protesters outside of his headquarters in New York, and absolutely nothing. Zero. Nada, Ainsley. And so, here we are today,” Ortiz outlined. “We filed a lawsuit yesterday in federal court in New York and basically making that request or demand, really, that they bring the game back to Atlanta, where it rightfully belongs and should have never been moved to begin with, or quite frankly set up a relief fund of $100 million, which is the estimated damages to our local businesses across Georgia.”
“[Manfred] has no choice now, Ainsley, but to actually pay attention,” he added. “And this is what we need to do. I think from this perspective, you know, Commissioner Manfred just believed that he knew better what Georgia’s laws should be in terms of voting laws, and he made a decision to move the game from Atlanta to Denver, which by the way, if you look at the black population, for example, of Georgia where it’s about 51%, Colorado is about 9%. There are nine times as many black-owned small businesses in Atlanta than there are in Denver. So, the very group that supposedly him and others wanted to try to protect because of the supposed issues with the voting laws that, you know, the legislators passed, he is actually hurting them. And that’s why we took action. We tried, like I said, everything possible. We frankly didn’t want to end up in court, but we’re going to do this because it’s the right thing to do, and we are here to right a very, very bad wrong.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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