Tagged: First Woman Attorney General

Posted: June 1, 2012 at 6:36 am

Montana Needs the Most Experienced Candidate to Defeat Tim Fox, Break Barriers

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave a talk recently about how there are too few women leaders. She said that out of 190 heads of state, nine are women. Out of all of the worlds parliaments 13% are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top in C-level or board positions top out at 15-16%. Sandberg says that even in the nonprofit sector, a place we think of having a lot of women leaders, we see the same thing. Only 20% of non profits are led by women. These are sobering statistics. But, at least when it comes to elected office, we have the power to change them.

Pam Bucy gives us the opportunity to elect a woman become Montana’s Attorney General for the first time in state history–one of only six in the U.S.

Bucy is the best candidate to go up against Tim Fox in the general election. First because women make up more than half the population. They vote more often than men–both in primary and general elections. Having a woman on the ticket will help turn out women voters–and that helps all democrats because women are much more likely to vote for them than for Republicans.

But the greatest reason that Pam Bucy is the best candidate to put against Tim Fox is her vast legal experience.

Bucy has been an attorney in private practice. She’s been the Chief Legal Council for the Montana Department of Labor–an agency with more than 600 employees. She spent four years as a county prosecutor with the Lewis and Clark County Attorney’s Office. For more than seven years she served as Chief Deputy Attorney General to Mike McGrath–the highest law enforcement official in the state– running the Department of Justice. She has been in the courtroom in public and private practice. She has worked with the Legislature. She has managed large agencies, and she has been instrumental in making legal and policy decisions that affect the entire state.

I know Democrats will get behind whomever wins the AG Primary next week, but Pam has the most knowledge and the experience to win in November and to hold the office of Attorney General.

Posted: May 18, 2012 at 5:08 pm

GUEST POST: Pam Bucy’s Volunteer Work Has Made Montana a More Just State

For professional and personal reasons, I have never commented or posted on a political blog. However, the fact that I have a unique perspective on Pam Bucy’s commitment to justice compels me to publicly support her in this context. Her varied and impressive legal experience is already well-known. What is less well-known is her 16 years of quiet, unpaid, tireless work for access to justice in this state. I know that her commitment to justice is genuine and deeply grounded in the core of who she is and what she believes.

I met Pam when I moved to Montana, right out of law school, to work for Montana Legal Services Association. Representing victims of domestic violence in eastern Montana, I was blown away by the utter and complete lack of access to justice for too many Montanans who couldn’t afford an attorney to help them exercise their rights in relation to housing, credit, parenting, and safety.

When I met Pam, at 33 years old, she had already put herself through law school as a single mom and was Executive Assistant Attorney General (aka Chief Deputy) under Mike McGrath. She was pregnant with her second child, and, somehow, she found the time to serve as the volunteer Chair of the Supreme Court’s Equal Justice Task Force. This was more than a title for Pam. She showed dedication in her passionate leadership, but she also got her hands dirty doing all kinds of work that needed to be done to increase access to justice for low-income Montanans.

In all of the years we worked with each other on access to justice issues, she was NEVER without a pro bono case. And she took the thankless ones that no one else wanted- complicated, highly contested, ugly, multi-year family law cases. There are women and children in Montana whose rights and safety were only protected because of Pam’s volunteer work. Her rare dedication has been recognized by her peers: In 2006, she was recognized by the State Bar with both a pro bono award and an award for distinguished service for access to justice.

When the State Bar received a bit of money to do a legal needs survey, she didn’t just lead the effort, she joined Americorps VISTA volunteers in conducting hour long interviews of low-income Montanans all across this state. Then she led the effort to have the legislature commission their own study of legal needs. That study directly led to the first-ever investment by the state in services, forms, and support for unrepresented litigants in Montana.

She helped create the first pro bono policy for state workers in Montana.

More recently, she demonstrated her commitment to access to justice on the Board of the Montana Legal Services Association. The list goes on and on and on….

I haven’t met a candidate yet who shares all of my beliefs or all of my policy positions. What I look for are people who share my core values, who I fundamentally trust to do the right thing, and who are committed to work hard for the people they represent. Pam is without question that candidate for me.

I can honestly say, without any fear of hyperbole or exaggeration, that Montana is a more just state because of Pam’s volunteer work over the last 16 years. Her commitment to justice is as deep and sincere as any person’s I know. I hope readers will consider this quiet, dedicated, and largely unknown part of Pam when they cast their votes for Attorney General in the primary.

Tara Veazey

Helena, MT

Posted: April 6, 2012 at 12:06 pm

The Fight Against Discrimination in Women’s Health Care

Pam Bucy has a guest editorial in the Missoulian today in which she proudly recounts how she fought, as Deputy Attorney General, for women’s prescription drug coverage, a benefit that insurance companies once denied. She writes:

Contraception has not always been a partisan or gendered issue. In 1970, Republicans and Democrats, women and men, worked together to pass landmark legislation establishing Title X. Signing the bill, President Richard Nixon stated, “It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.”

When Bucy first took up the fight, Viagra and male pattern baldness medication were both covered by insurance companies, while birth control–a prescription 99% of women use–was not.

In March 2006, then-President of the Montana Senate Jon Tester requested an opinion from Attorney General Mike McGrath, specifically asking if this exclusion of contraception violated Montana statute. As McGrath’s chief deputy attorney general, I researched and wrote the opinion that ended gender discrimination in insurance purchasing by mandating insurance companies cover contraception if they covered prescription drugs. While these are basic services, at the time this provision was unique to Montana and broke ground in providing unprecedented access for women to contraception.

Please realize, too, that insurance industry lobbyists are donating to Bucy’s opponent. These lobbyists killed legislative anti-discrimination measures in three straight sessions: 2001, 2003 and 2005.

Posted: March 29, 2012 at 6:19 pm

GUEST POST: It Takes Courage

The following is a guest post by Holly Kaleczyc.

In my years serving women in crisis in Helena, I learned that it takes courage to be an advocate for women—to stand up for our reproductive rights in the face of aggressive and sometimes ugly, violent opposition. I’m thrilled to support such an advocate for Attorney General—Pam Bucy. Pam has served on the board of Planned Parenthood, she has done countless hours of pro bono legal work on behalf of women, and she authored the Attorney General opinion that ended gender discrimination in insurance purchasing and mandated that health insurance cover birth control like any other prescription. Pam has fought, with courage, for women.

Women’s organizations are lining up behind Pam. EMILY’s List and the Women’s Campaign Fund endorsed Pam very early on. Just a few weeks ago, Planned Parenthood Montana gave their sole primary endorsement to Pam Bucy. Her primary opponent, Jesse Laslovich, received a recommendation, indicating that his record has not been 100%– and demonstrating that he is not the best advocate for women running in this race.

Mr. Laslovich has not always been on our side. In 2003, Mr. Laslovich had a 66% score with NARAL for his vote for a fetal pain bill—a bill mandating questionable medical procedures for women and opposed by the medical profession. In 2009 he had a 90% record because he voted for a bill that defined life at conception, creating a crime of fetal homicide. Overall, Jesse’s record on choice has been ok most of the time. Pam Bucy has stood with women all of the time.

With the attacks on our basic rights to contraception, funding for victims’ services at risk, and continuous anti-woman rhetoric, we need to elect leaders who we can count on all the time.

Posted: February 17, 2012 at 7:00 am

Female Elephants Need Not Apply

In the Republican primary for governor, six male candidates have now chosen six male running mates. It is a male-only field.

And it gets worse: Of the twenty or so Republicans who have announced a run for statewide office, only one is a woman.

At a minimum, you’d think at least one of the idiots running for governor would sense some political value in choosing a woman. Yet none did. Perhaps this is why the GOP has been relegated to a fringe sect in Montana. Perhaps this is why an ignoramus like Dennis Rehberg is now the Republicans’ lone statewide office holder, literally the last man standing.

Fortunately, Democrats give no quarter to such sexism.

For starters, Pam Bucy, an accomplished lawyer and deputy attorney general, is poised to become our next Attorney General. She would become Montana’s first female Attorney General and one of only six in America, and only the second woman in Montana’s 122 year history to occupy a top elected office in Montana (the others are Jeanette Rankin and Judy Martz).

And don’t forget Monica Lindeen, Denise Juneau and Linda McCulloch, who are sitting in the three other executive positions right now, as well as Carol Williams who was Senate President in 2009 and now Senate Majority leader. She is the only woman ever to hold the top legislative post in either house.

And the Democratic nominee for Congress will also be a female, either Kim Gillan, Franke Wilmer or Diane Smith. In the past, our nominees for Congress have included Tracy Velasquez, Lindeen, and Nancy Keenan for Congress, and Dorothy Bradley ran for Governor. On the Public Service Commission, we have Gail Gutsche and may also soon have Lynda Moss.

The only females of the species playing a role in the GOP gubernatorial primary are the numerous ex-wives and mistresses of a few of the candidates. I guess that’s better than nothing.