State house candidate is all about justice

The issues Libertarian candidate Shawn Guymon wants to address if he’s elected as the House District 3 candidate are the issues he says he’s faced personally.

“I’m all about justice, and I have opinions just like most Montanans on everything,” he said.

The fourth-generation Montanan and Flathead High School graduate attended the University of Montana and Flathead Valley Community College without graduating and served six years in the Air Force.

After working in the telecommunications business in North Carolina, he returned to Montana in 1992 and spent five years looking for work. In 1997, he started the Classy Cab taxi business in the Flathead, which he ran for six years until it was “wrongfully” taken from him by the Montana Public Service Commission, he said. Guymon said the PSC’s action came after “fictitious actions” were filed in Columbia Falls City Court and he won those cases.

“I was charged with trespassing on a public road and then assault by intimidation, which began as threat to a public official,” he said. “I’ve never given anyone the evil eye, but you can’t know for sure because you can’t see yourself.”

Guymon said he was told there was nothing he could do after the PSC took his cab company license.

“Where do you go? Who do you see?” he asked. “We need to get the court rooms opened back up to the people.”

During that time, Guymon said, he helped 12 families who were fighting fraud and identity theft but couldn’t get help from the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office.

He also said his advocacy for a woman in Missoula facing fictitious child-abuse charges and his appearance in front of a Joint House and Senate Justice Committee ultimately led to the establishment of Montana’s public defender system. According to a campaign flyer, he “fought for state public defenders program, approved 20 min. later.”

In 2006, Guymon ran for Flathead County Justice of the Peace, losing to David Ortley by 23,067 to 4,132 in the nonpartisan race.

“I was nearly killed afterward when my vehicle was sabotaged,” he said.

According to Guymon, someone cut off the exhaust pipe on the delivery truck he drove for a Flathead business and he suffered permanent injuries caused by carbon dioxide poisoning. He said there was no legal redress because he was covered by state workmen’s compensation insurance and that the sheriff’s office wouldn’t investigate the matter.

“Do you see the pattern?” he asked.

Guymon said federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators told him he was wrongfully let go and that he was owed back wages, but that Guymon would have to sign a settlement agreement.

“That would let them off the hook, and I wouldn’t do it,” he said.

Eliminating the provision in state workmen’s comp law protecting insured employers from liability is one of Guymon’s top priorities. He’s also committed to stopping a smart-growth agenda promoted by the United Nations. He cites as proof a plaque in Coram that commemorates the 2003 Robert Fire as an “experimental” fire conducted as a “UN/MAB project.”

Guymon ran for House District 3 in 2010 as an independent. He garnered 283 votes to Republican Jerry O’Neil’s 1,725 and Democrat Zac Perry’s 1,299. He said he mailed flyers out last time but lacks the money this year.