Attorney-general candidate says he has the experience

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

Steve Bullock, the Democratic candidate for Montana Attorney General, says he has the necessary experience to do the job.

A Montana native, Bullock graduated with honors from Columbia Law School in New York City in 1994. After working for two large law firms back East, he returned to Montana in 1996 after his father got sick.

Bullock was appointed chief deputy under Montana Attorney General Joe Mazurek, who is now Bullock's campaign treasurer. While there, he successfully defended the state's 1985 stream access law before the Montana Supreme Court.

Bullock also oversaw review of citizen ballot issues and provided legal advice to the Montana Highway Patrol, State Crime Lab, Montana Law Enforcement Academy and other Justice Department programs.

After four years in the attorney general's office, Bullock returned to Washington, D.C., to work for another large law firm. He returned to Montana in 2005 and opened up The Bullock Law Firm in Helena. He has argued 12 cases before the Montana Supreme Court and has been an adjunct professor at George Washington School of Law, in Washington, D.C.

"The Department of Justice is a $70 million agency with 750 employees," he said, "with state troopers, lawyers, the motor vehicle department and gambling control."

Grants can be used to beef up some department functions, such as consumer protection on the Internet, but more money is probably needed for the state crime lab.

"Either it will come from the state or it will come from local governments that have to send their crime lab work out-of-state," he said.

The state also needs to ramp up its protection of children from sexual predators, Bullock said.

"We don't need new legislation," he said. "We do need to make sure that we convict sex offenders and that we effectively enforce the laws we already have on the books."

Bullock said he will dedicate a prosecutor in the attorney general's office to focus on crimes against children and develop a Children's Justice Center to help enforce laws protecting children. He also wants to change the state's evidentiary rules, so a sex offender's priors can be used in court, as is allowed under federal rules, and he wants a new law requiring psychological evaluation of students who bring weapons into schools.

"A child bringing a weapon to school is crying out for help and is a danger to others and to himself," he said.

Montana has been successful in reducing methamphetamine use, but a new drug problem is emerging, Bullock said — abuse of prescription drugs, especially during "pharma" parties, where youths bring assorted drugs from their parents' medicine cabinets.

Again, "there's no need to reinvent the wheel," Bullock said — 35 other states have prescription-drug monitoring programs. He also wants to "curb doctor shopping" and promote education about the problem — as was done with the Montana Meth Project.

Charged with consumer protection, the attorney general's office needs to step up protection of the elderly, Bullock said. By 2030, Montana could have the third-highest percentage of people over-65 in the nation, and while seniors represent 12 percent of the population, they account for 35 percent of all fraud victims.

While serving in the attorney general's office, Bullock helped write and pass the state's Telemarketing Fraud Protection Act. But with the growth of the Internet, he wants to go further by aggressively prosecuting predatory companies using the Internet, maintaining a Web site with daily updates about Internet scams and assigning more officers to Internet crime.

"More than 200 officers are dedicated to our highways, while only two state officers are patrolling the information superhighway," he said.

As one of five statewide-elected officials sitting on the State Land Board, the attorney general would have a lot to say about how state lands are developed as revenue sources for schools and other state programs.

"We need to preserve the asset," Bullock said. "Don't sell off the lands, and try to maximize the fiduciary return without harming the lands for future generations."

Bullock said he's not against developing the huge coal fields in the Otter Creek tracts "but first, we need to take our time appraising the land's value — let's not lose it to a fire sale."