Since many of you are not familiar with me outside of my local community in Helena, I wanted to put this statement here on my campaign website so you could get to know me a little bit better and see what I'm about.

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I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1972, but I grew up in the panhandle of Northwest Florida, in the town of Gulf Breeze, Florida, to be exact. My first experience working on political campaigns was when I was in high school as a volunteer on the George H.W. Bush campaign for the presidency. I respected the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and I still respect it to this day. George H.W. Bush was an old-school Republican. While we may disagree with certain elements of his policy, he had respect for the institutions of American government, and he wasn't afraid to make difficult decisions when needed.

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For example, when George H.W. Bush ran for president, he took a very, very solid position against raising any taxes. In fact, he famously said at the Republican National Convention in 1988, "Read my lips: No New Taxes!"​ However, once he was in the presidential office and he realized that the economic policies of Ronald Reagan were going to cause large increases in the national debt, he worked with Democrats to raise taxes (this is one of the reasons why he was likely defeated by Bill Clinton in the presidential election of 1992).  As a result of President Bush's leadership, we saw the deficit decrease for a brief period of time during his presidency (the debt went back up at the end of President Clinton's 2nd term, and then shot through the roof under George W. Bush's presidency).  President George H.W. Bush also signed into the law the Americans with Disabilities Act.  In my opinion, when I look back at his Presidency, I see a man who was not afraid to use common sense to try to deal with the national problems and put politics aside for the good of the Nation. In other words,  President George H.W. Bush actually acted like an adult!

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Since that time, I’ve worked on a variety of political campaigns, including the campaigns for my ex-wife who was a Representative in the Montana Legislature. Although the campaigns I’ve worked on since my first once have been Democrats, today I would consider myself an independent-minded Montanan, as I think both parties have lost their way and are in need of reform. 

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​The part of America that I grew up in was subject to extremism. For instance, I can still recall being a teenager in high school and seeing people dressed in KKK garb handing out Klan literature in the streets of Pensacola, Florida, in broad daylight. Pensacola was also the first place in the United States of America where anti-abortion extremists began shooting abortion doctors. In other words, I grew up seeing the effects of extremism and what happens when societies do not exercise basic common sense.  I think this experience is valuable today in the face of the irrational, extremist, and unjust federal tyranny that the Trump Administration is imposing on the Free States in America.​

 

I went to college in the Atlanta, Georgia, area and obtained a degree in philosophy from Emory University. I studied a wide range of areas including philosophy, political science, history, and science, and to this day I've maintained a very firm interest in those disciplines and they inform my work as a candidate for office.  After graduating from college in 1995, I held a variety of different jobs, including working in the mental health field, teaching, being a ski bum in Colorado, waiting tables, tour guide, and variety of other jobs. In the early 2000s, I met my ex-wife and we started a family. Today we are “happily divorced” and have two adult children (Sage and Owen, pictured above) whom we are both very proud of. We also share joint custody of our beloved dog, Walter.

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​Once we started a family, we decided that I should go to law school.  I graduated from University of Montana Law School in 2007 and we moved to Helena. I clerked at the Montana Supreme Court for three years under Justice Patricia Cotter. I then went into private practice at the Morrison, Sherwood, and Wilson, Deola, law firm in September of 2010. I've been there ever since. I became a partner at that firm in 2014.

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​Since September of 2010, I've represented Montanans from all walks of life, all socioeconomic backgrounds, and all political persuasions. I've tried cases to jury in courtrooms all over the state on a wide variety of issues, ranging from consumer fraud, dog killings, will disputes, property disputes, cases against banks, cases against insurance companies, civil rights cases, divorces, construction disputes, and all things in between. My wide variety of practice, the diverse number of Montanans that I have represented, as well as my work in courtrooms in many different jurisdictions throughout the state, has given me an understanding of how Montanans think and what they believe is important to them. Also, as a civil trial attorney, I've had to work with subject matter experts in a variety of fields, sometimes going into areas of which I knew nothing about when I started the case. This has taught me how to ask the right questions and assimilate new knowledge in order to do my job.

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​I believe that my long-term interests, and the skills I've developed as a trial attorney in Montana, would be a good fit to represent the people of Montana's Second Congressional District in Congress. I am absolutely certain I would do this job far better than Congressman Troy Downing has done, and if you do decide to put me into office, I promise I will work as hard for you as I can and try to get the best results for the People of Montana’s Second Congressional District. I'm not going to guarantee I'm going to make everybody happy, because I don't think that's the job of a member of Congress. Instead, I think the job of a member of Congress is to work as hard as they can in good faith and do the best work that they can. ​

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I'll finish with this.  When I was in law school, I took constitutional law from a professor by the name of Robert Natelson. Some of you may be familiar with Professor Natelson, as he was a longtime conservative political figure here in Montana and once ran for Governor of Montana (he now lives in Colorado, I believe). One of the things I remember that Professor Natelson told us was this: He said that the Founders, most of whom were lawyers, practiced the law of estates, and that in estate law, there is a concept of known as the “fiduciary duty”, meaning that the person who is overseeing this estate or the will has a fiduciary duty to the beneficiaries of the will to always act in their best interest and not their own. Professor Natelson told us that this was how the Founders intended the relationship between the people and the representatives in Congress to be, and that Members of Congress were to act as fiduciaries for the People they represent. I've always taken this lesson seriously to heart, and if you put me in Congress, I'll do the best I can to implement it.  I will always act with the best interests of the People in mind.