Why I'm Running
“I think if more politicians spent more time driving tractors or feeding horses, the entire country would be better off.”
Dennis McDonald, together with Sharon, his wife of 31 years, and their four children own and operate the Open Spear Ranch in Melville, where they raise angus-cross cattle and performance horses. Dennis has long been a leader in addressing agriculture and trade issues critical to Montana’s farmers and ranchers.
He successfully pushed for laws such as the Country of Origin Labeling Act and the Montana Certified Natural Beef Program. He also founded the Beef-On-Every-Plate program, which has provided hundreds of thousands of meals to needy Montanans.
His hard work led to his appointment in 1998 to the President’s International Trade Advisory Committee for Livestock, for which he traveled extensively through the western hemisphere. In this role he fought against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which he felt placed Montana farmers and ranchers at a competitive disadvantage.
That sense of fairness spurred him to lead efforts to raise Montana’s minimum wage in 2006 and to come out strong for health care reform to ensure that all Montanans are covered. What’s most important, he says, are the “bread-and-butter, kitchen-table issues” that strike a chord with families all over the state. To understand that, you need to appreciate the values that make Montana so special.
His vocal role as an advocate for the Ag community - he is a founder of the United States Cattlemen's Association and also a past President of the Montana Cattlemen's Association - led to greater involvement in state politics when, in 2005, he was chosen chairman of Montana’s Democratic party. His efforts to revitalize the party, particularly in rural areas all over the state, helped to elect Democrat Jon Tester to the U.S. Senate in 2006.
Dennis’ view of himself as a populist who favors the underdog has its roots early in his life when his family lost their home in Kansas and moved to northern California to start over. To pay for college, he worked summer jobs in a cannery and as a Forest Service firefighter, and he worked his way through law school as a member of the teamsters union.
In his legal career, Dennis focused on representing injured individuals in cases against insurance companies and big corporations. One of his clients referred organized crime figure Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno to Dennis. Dennis helped Fratianno turn state’s evidence against other mobsters. After contacting the FBI, Dennis worked with Rudolph Giuliani’s anti-corruption taskforce and Fratianno’s testimony eventually sent 26 high-ranking gangsters to jail.
But for all his success as a lawyer, Dennis, who grew up hunting and fishing in Montana, never lost his love for the state. He bought his first ranch in Montana in the early 1970's and started raising cattle.