POLSON — John Heenan said he stands up to bullies for a living, and that’s why he decided to run for Congress.
Heenan, the first of six Democrats to announce a run for their party’s nomination next June, said he decided to run for the seat right after this year’s special election that resulted in Montanans electing Greg Gianforte of Bozeman to replace U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.
Heenan, a 40-year-old attorney from Billings, came to Polson last week and talked to about 25 people at Blodgett Creamery Coffee Saloon.
He said that Gianforte bankrolling much of his campaign victory over GOP primary opponents and then Democrat Rob Quist reminds him of Montana’s mining barons, i.e. the Copper Kings.
He referred to the Republican Party’s economic idea of income tax rate cuts as “trickle-down non-sense,” and said he believes in a living wage for all and Medicare for all.
Heenan also said he’s passionate about fighting “dark money,” and wants to lead the fight to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that supported rights of corporate entities to contribute to political campaigns. He acknowledged the Herculean effort it would take to do this, i.e. a Constitutional amendment, but nonetheless is undaunted.
He cited a movie, Dark Money, set to come out in the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah next month.
“In the (Democratic) primary, you’ll be given a choice on whether you want someone who will not back down,” he said.
Heenan called Gianforte “the wealthiest member of Congress,” and said he will not accept money from political action committees.
Republicans will not be able to make attacks against him like they made against Quist for questionable business dealings, Heenan said, noting he and his wife, Meagen, own Local Kitchen & Bar, a restaurant in Billings that sells locally-grown food and employs 13.
“I’ve got street cred on that stuff,” Heenan said. “I’m more like small business owners in Montana than Greg Gianforte.”
A man in the audience pointed out that three of Heenan’s Democrat competitors are or were state legislators and wondered why Heenan hadn’t started in politics by running for a lower office. Heenan said that legislative experience is not a “magic formula” to winning elections. “I really feel like there’s a bully (Gianforte), and I’m someone who knows how to beat bullies and take them on.”
“If it wasn’t Greg Gianforte, I wouldn’t be running,” he said, adding that he has deposed and prosecuted “people like this. I’ve prosecuted Mr. Gianforte’s friends.” He specifically noted Art Wittich, a former state representative from Bozeman whom he helped successfully prosecute for campaign finance violations.
When asked about his willingness to compromise, Heenan said he compromises and negotiates for a living, but added that “there’s more candidates that have more reach across the aisle than I do. We can’t always be negotiating and asking, ‘Pretty please?’”
Heenan said he’s taken a position on any issue when asked to do so, but didn’t have answers about some issues. These include whether to legalize marijuana and what to do about climate change, for example.
When a woman asked about regulating guns, Heenan said he doesn’t want to expand gun rights and doesn’t want to take away people’s guns. When pressed further on the issue, Heenan said his platform does not include adding regulations or taking away regulations in regard to guns.
“I’m used to fighting big banks,” he said. “Those folks have unfettered control over what’s happening in Washington.”
After the meeting, Heenan said his heroes are Franklin Delano Roosevelt, former Congressman Pat Williams, Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk and “a little bit of Teddy Roosevelt.”
Heenan graduated from the University of Montana with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and worked as an over-the-road truck driver and forklift operator for two years before going back to U of M to earn a law degree.
He has been practicing law for 14 years and notes that his wife is a former teacher and now a stay-at-home mother of their four children.
Heenan said he has been campaigning full-time since August.
His Democratic opponents include: former state Sen. Lynda Moss of Billings, former state Rep. Kathleen Williams of Bozeman, state Rep. Tom Woods of Bozeman, Grant Kier, a former well-site geologist and executive director of the Missoula-based Five Valleys Land Trust, and Jared Pettinato, a Whitefish native who worked as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. from 2008-2017 and comes from a railroading family.
