News :: Steve Bullock for Montana Governor

Citizens unite over Citizens United decision

by dave

March 19th, 2012

Citizens unite over Citizens United decision

Helena Independent Record

Published 3/18/12

It’s time for Montanans to stand up for themselves.

More and more, our individual voices are getting drowned out by big money in politics. The recent Citizens United v. FEC decision by the U.S. Supreme Court has made the situation intolerable.

That’s why on Feb. 28, we filed a citizens’ initiative that we hope will appear on the 2012 ballot.

This initiative states clearly that corporations are not people. Corporations do not breathe, they do not have children, they do not die fighting in wars for our country, and they do not vote in elections.

We hope that you’ll stand with Montanans in this fight. This is one of the greatest challenges in our lifetime and we Montanans are in a critical position in this historic debate.

Here is what we’re up against: The Citizens United decision, supported by five of nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, ruled that corporations have a First Amendment-protected right to free speech that allows them to spend unlimited corporate money in our elections.

Following this ruling, American Tradition Partnership (then called Western Tradition Partnership), sued our state, claiming that Montana’s visionary 100-year-old Corrupt Practices Act, which bans corporations from spending on candidate elections, is unconstitutional. On Dec. 30, 2011, the Montana Supreme Court stood up for our state and issued a ruling that upholds our century-old law.

On Feb. 17 this year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of that ruling and will soon decide whether to hear the case.

All this has eliminated Montana’s most vital election law, opening the floodgates for Big Money to drown our airwaves in negative political attack ads.

It’s clear that we can’t stand by any longer. We must take action to protect the voice of Montana voters and our elections.

Our proposed initiative calls for a Montana policy that clearly states corporations aren’t people and that money is not speech. It requires anyone holding an elected or appointed office to prohibit “whenever they can and by all means possible” corporations from making contributions to, or expenditures on, the campaigns of candidates or ballot issues. And it directs Montana’s congressional delegation to propose and work to pass a joint resolution offering an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolishes the Citizen’s United decision.

Montanans know firsthand how corporate money corrupts elections.

We saw how the Copper Kings paid their way to dominate our state for decades. We fought back by passing the Corrupt Practices act in 1912.

We applaud and support the efforts of Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock and the Montana Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Mike McGrath, to defend this law against the American Traditions lawsuit. We hope this effort will succeed.

Let’s be clear: We do not advocate the trampling of anyone’s personal rights. If corporate executives want to use their own money for campaign ads, they can form political committees and contribute to them just as the people who fund environmental groups or gun rights organizations do.

But CEOs should not have the right to use money from their shareholders and customers to support political campaigns. We say emphatically once again, corporations are not people.

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, such as the one we propose, can overrule the highest court in the land. When previous Supreme Courts ruled that slavery and poll taxes were legal, Americans responded by passing constitutional amendments. They did so again after the Court struck down voting rights for 18-year-olds. And Montanans used the initiative process in its first ballot election in 1912 to pass a measure calling for a constitutional amendment to provide direct election of U.S. senators.

Our effort is called Stand with Montanans: Corporations Aren’t People – Ban Corporate Campaign Spending. Our challenge is enormous, but winnable. Just like Montanans who fought against corporate control of elections 100 years ago, we now invite you to stand with us in this fight.

Learn more about our effort and join the fight, visit www.StandWithMontanans.org.

Verner Bertelseon of Helena is a former Montana secretary of state. Co-signed by C.B. Pearson, treasurer, Stand With Montanans: Corporations Aren‘t People – Ban Corporate Spending Missoula, MT; and Becky Douglas of Heritage Timber in Potomac.

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Bullock tops list of last-day filers

by dave

March 13th, 2012

Bullock tops list of last-day filers

Associated Press

Published 3/12/12

Crowded primary battles solidified Monday with the last day of filing for access to the 2012 ballot, a busy day topped by the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor formally filing for office.

Seven Republicans are seeking the governor’s office being vacated by Gov. Brian Schweitzer. But for the Democrats, Attorney General Steve Bullock has all the limelight.

“Montana is at a crossroads, and the decisions we make and the people we elect will shape the future,” said Bullock, who recently announced Montana National Guard Brig. Gen. John Walsh as a running mate.

Republicans are trying to hang President Barack Obama’s policies as a yoke on Montana Democrats up and down the ballot. Many credit the GOP’s big 2010 wins in local legislative races to voter dissatisfaction with the president.

Bullock, who said he doesn’t think his election will hinge on national issues as much as it will on priorities closer to home, offered a mixed assessment of his party’s president.

Bullock said he disagrees with the president’s handling in several areas, such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline where critics say Obama has significantly slowed development. He also pointed out that he disagreed with a scuttled effort by the administration to revive Clinton-era gun restrictions, and that he argued against the administration in the state’s U.S. Supreme Court case seeking rent from land occupied by hydroelectric dams.

But Bullock gave the president credit for reform of controls over financial institutions and standing up for giving women improved access to contraception, a big issue recently for the president and his Republican critics.

Montana Democrats think that Republicans will have problems of their own answering for the GOP-led state Legislature of 2011 that sparred with outgoing Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who famously called their work “bat-crap crazy.”

“The irresponsibility of the last session has pushed a lot of people to run for office and will inspire a lot of people to vote for Democrats,” said Montana Democratic Party strategist Lauren Caldwell.

The Democrats pointed out that more than two dozen Republicans are mired in primary challenges from within their own party.

Democrats say they believe the turmoil will help them reclaim legislative seats lost in 2010 when Republicans rushed to historic margins in the state House. They said solid candidates have been recruited for swing seats the GOP has won in recent years, such as in Havre, Butte, Helena and around Indian reservations.

The Montana GOP said Democrats have erroneously made the same prediction in the past, and argued Republicans embrace intra-party competition as a way of getting the best candidates.

“They will be sorely disappointed in their hopes,” said Montana Executive Director Bowen Greenwood. “The people of many communities around Montana rejected the Democrats’ big spending, big government agenda in 2010, and they haven’t changed their agenda.”

Other last-minute filers for office included a couple of candidates considered long shots for the GOP nomination for governor: former Schweitzer cabinet appointee Jim Lynch and anti-wolf activist Bob Fanning of Pray.

Lynch isn’t conceding, arguing he thinks his record as head of the Montana Department of Transportation will trump the legislative backgrounds of the perceived GOP front runners.

Bullock was likely one of the few embracing a primary challenge that came in late.

Bullock expressed no concern over a last-minute primary filing from Heather Margolis of Helena, who says she wants to use the platform to advance the cause of public service. Without a primary opponent Bullock would have been forced to return thousands in campaign contributions earmarked just for primary season.

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Bullock makes pick of Walsh official

by dave

March 13th, 2012

Bullock makes pick of Walsh official

Lee State Bureau

Published 3/9/12

Democratic candidate for governor Steve Bullock said he chose Brig. Gen. John Walsh as his running mate because he wants a lieutenant governor who knows “how to overcome obstacles, put ideological differences aside and get things done for the state that we love.”

Bullock, the state’s attorney general, announced his selection of Walsh at a press conference at Great Falls International Airport on Thursday.

“I’m lucky to have an experienced leader like him by my side, and I feel lucky that Montana has people as dedicated to our future as John,” Bullock said in his speech.

Walsh resigned earlier this week as Montana’s adjutant general overseeing the Montana National Guard to join Bullock’s ticket.

“I’ve served on many missions, including leading some of the finest men and women this state has to offer into combat,” Walsh said. “Today, I’m embarking on a new mission. I know it won’t be easy, but important ones rarely are.”

At present, Bullock and Walsh are the only Democratic team in the governor’s race, but they have not officially filed yet, while five of the seven announced Republican candidates have done so. The filing deadline is Monday.

Term limits prevent Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, from seeking a third term.

Walsh, 51, is a Butte native who has served in the Montana National Guard since 1979, working his way up from an enlisted man to a brigadier general. He commanded a 750-soldier infantry battalion in Iraq and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Bullock praised Walsh’s leadership, saying the two men had worked together in recent years on educating military families about scams by con artists targeting them.

Because of Walsh’s leadership, the Montana National Guard “is maintaining an unprecedented level of readiness — prepared to be called upon to defend our country and our freedom,” Bullock said.

If elected, Walsh said he and Bullock as a team would work across party lines to improve schools, help small businesses create jobs and expand opportunities for young Montanans, particularly those who have returned after serving their country overseas.

The running mate said he wants to make sure that the state and nation fulfill the promise made to the 120,000 veterans in Montana so they have “access to world-class health care and benefits.”

Walsh will remain a brigadier general serving in the Montana National Guard at weekend drills monthly and summer camp.

A Butte High School graduate, Walsh studied at Carroll College and received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the State University of New York in 1990. He obtained a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College in 2007.

Walsh and his wife, Janet, a para-educator, have been married 27 years and are longtime Helena residents. They have two sons, Michael, a pilot with the National Guard on duty in Kuwait, and Taylor, who is pursuing an acting career in New York.

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NPR: Montana Defies Supreme Court’s Citizens United Case

by dave

February 29th, 2012

Published 2/27/12

In the Citizens United Case in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled corporations and unions have a constitutional right to spend unlimited money on political ads. State courts are expected to follow that principle. But in December, Montana’s high court refused to go along. It argued Montana’s history and demography make it different enough to deserve an exemption from the federal ruling.

It’s a vision of the past that’s shared by Steve Bullock, Montana’s Democratic Attorney General.

“Our legislature, our judges, down to the local county assessors, were almost bought and paid for. Mark Twain even said that, you know, the amount of money coming in in Montana makes the smell of corruption almost sweet.”

Listen to full story here>>http://www.npr.org/2012/02/27/147488187/montana-defies-citizens-united-case

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Undermining State Campaign Laws

by dave

February 29th, 2012

Undermining State Campaign Laws

New York Times

Published 2/28/12

On Friday, a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction against a Montana law, the Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, that bans corporations from making independent expenditures in political campaigns. Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court, in a separate case from the state courts, issued a temporary order preventing Montana from enforcing that law.

These cases and others in the country show how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has upended important state campaign spending laws. As the Montana Supreme Court has said on this question, “Clearly the impact of unlimited corporate donations creates a dominating impact on the political process and inevitably minimizes the impact of individual citizens.”

In states where a corporate spending ban is in place, contributions from individuals represent about half of funds raised by candidates. In states that permit unlimited corporate spending, contributions from individuals are about a quarter of the funds raised.

Now even Montana’s law requiring disclosure of campaign spending is being challenged in court. As Steve Bullock, Montana’s attorney general, said recently, “It’s a concerted effort by out-of-state corporations to dismantle our election laws and undermine the democratic process in Montana.”

The federal district judge, however, did properly uphold state limits on campaign donations for individuals, political committees and political parties. And showing deference to free speech, he enjoined Montana laws banning knowingly false statements in election materials and requiring that materials disclose relevant voting records.

Montana’s campaign spending law arose from a history of fighting political corruption. The suits attacking it have drawn national attention. At stake is whether state elections will be decided by corporations that are allowed to spend unlimited amounts to influence the results.

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Gazette Opinion: Montana case argues against super PAC’s

by dave

February 24th, 2012

Gazette Opinion: Montana case argues against super PAC’s

Billings Gazette

Published 2/24/12

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that Montana’s voter-approved anticorruption law can’t be enforced while a challenge to that century-old law is appealed.

The immediate effect of the U.S. court staying the decision of the Montana Supreme Court is that unlimited amounts of money can and will be spent to influence our state elections this year. This is precisely the situation that prompted Montanans to enact the corrupt practices law shortly after the state constitution authorized initiatives.

Citizens United

However, if the U.S. court decides to hear the Montana case, it could revise its Citizens United decision, which held that corporations and unions are “persons” entitled to the same rights of free speech as human beings. The court held that money is speech and that no limits on campaign spending can be imposed on the biggest spenders who claim not to be connected with a party or candidate.

The Montana Supreme Court upheld state law.

“Clearly, the impact of unlimited corporate donations creates a dominating impact on the political process and inevitably minimizes the impact of individual citizens,” Chief Justice Mike McGrath wrote for the majority. “Montana has a compelling interest to impose the challenged rationally tailored statutory restrictions.”

American Tradition Partnership, formerly Western Tradition Partnership, asked the U.S. court to stay the Montana decision. When the court granted the stay last week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote a statement that noted: “Montana’s experience, and the experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010), make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’ ” The italicized phrase is a quote from the majority Citizens United opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“A petition for certiorari will give the Court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway,” Ginsburg wrote. Justice Stephen Breyer joined Ginsburg in her statement. We agree with them.

Unfortunately, the consideration that Ginsburg and Breyer suggest may take more than a year. The application for stay and the granting of that stay are the first steps in what could be a lengthy process.

American Tradition Partnership now can petition for the U.S. court to agree to review the Montana court’s ruling.

Court process

Once the petition is filed, it takes an average of about six weeks for the court to decide whether it will grant a writ of certiorari, according to the court’s public information office. Among the 100,000 or so cases filed with the court annually, about 100 are granted review.

If the justices decide to review the Montana case, both the Montana Attorney General’s Office and American Tradition Partnership will have time to file briefs. However, the case may not be heard and decided until the court’s next term. Cases granted after the third Monday in January are carried over until the next term begins in October, unless the case is expedited by the court, according to information from the court’s public information office.

So it’s likely that Montanans will see the highest political spending ever this year. Much of that spending will come from outside the candidates’ own campaigns, outside our state and outside Montana law.

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Limits on spending are reasonable

by dave

February 24th, 2012

Limits on spending are reasonable

Helena Independent Record

Published 2/21/12

We were already anticipating an eight-figure outpouring of difficult-to-trace, out-of-state money being spent on Montana’s U.S. Senate election this fall, so in that sense perhaps last week’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court further opening the floodgates to corporate spending here won’t change much.

We applauded the Montana Supreme Court last month for its 5-2 rebuke of Citizens United, even as we acknowledged that the U.S. high court would likely overrule our state’s bench. And last week, the U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on the Montana Supreme Court’s Dec. 30 ruling while it awaits an appeal from American Tradition Partnership, the group that brought the case against Montana’s corporate spending ban.

The potential for the high court to hear an appeal will give Montana one more chance to make its case for the ill effects of corporate election spending, but the makeup of the Supreme Court majority hasn’t changed since Citizens United, which limits our optimism that our state law will be upheld.

Make no mistake, the 2010 Citizens United decision allowing corporate spending is already having profound effects on the electoral process. Just look how the Republican presidential nominating campaign is playing out across the country. Shadowy Super PACs are dumping millions of dollars into one state after another, mostly in negative advertising that often doesn’t even mention the candidate the PAC supports by name. It’s no way to choose a leader.

Meanwhile, some pundits predict that total spending on Montana’s 2012 Senate race could reach $20 million — an outrageous sum for a grand total of around 500,000 votes.

The negative nature of most campaigns now is troubling, though it’s tough to ask politicians and their henchmen to stop doing what works. But what bothers us more about the new era of Wild West corporate involvement in elections is that it has the potential to concentrate too much influence in too few hands, with that influence pushing too few special interests that don’t benefit the population at large. A representative democracy only works when everyone truly has a voice, and when the voices of the many aren’t drowned out by the pocketbooks of a few.

Now might be a good time to point out how the two main contenders for the U.S. Senate in Montana feel about the Citizens United ruling and its aftermath. In a meeting with our editorial board last month, Denny Rehberg said there’s nothing more protected than political speech, and that “while we may find it irritating that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of people’s involvement in the political process, it is the Constitution and we just kind of have to recognize that.”

It’s not people’s involvement in the process, though, that Citizens United is about. This is about corporate spending, and whether corporations have the same rights as people. We don’t think so.

In a separate interview with our editorial board, Jon Tester, meanwhile, said he would amend the Constitution to bring back the accountability and limits that have been lost to Citizens United, and he’s since signed on as a co-sponsor of two slightly different proposed amendments that would do just that.

We’re with Tester on this one. Corporations aren’t people, and limits and regulations on corporate spending and accountability are completely reasonable. Calling for a constitutional amendment may smack of an election year headline grab, but the fact is, Tester is on the right side of this issue.

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The Court and Citizens United II

by dave

February 24th, 2012

The Court and Citizens United II

New York Times

Published 2/21/12

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reconsider its disastrous Citizens United decision. The justices should take it. The damaging effects of unlimited spending by corporations and unions on elections — honestly examined — should cause the court to overturn or, at the very least, limit that ruling.

On Friday, the justices granted a stay of a Montana state court ruling that upheld a state anticorruption campaign finance law. The stay gives the parties in the Montana case time to file papers to seek Supreme Court review. In supporting the stay, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’ ” She was quoting Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United, in which he claimed that expenditures might result in “influence over or access to elected officials” but would not “corrupt” them.

The Montana state court ruling rests on a careful review of the political corruption that led the state to pass its Corrupt Practices Act. The Citizens United ruling, by contrast, is based on no evidentiary record at all. The Supreme Court, on its own initiative, took up the broad question of corporate and union spending when the controversy in the case was much narrower. The court’s conservative majority essentially used the Citizens United case to overturn a century of established federal law by imposing its own legal theory, without relying on facts.

The gap between the court’s mistaken assumptions (“the appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy”) and the real-world effect of the cash unleashed by the decision could not be more glaring.

A petition to review the Montana case, Justice Ginsburg wrote, “will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.” If the Supreme Court takes the case, it should call on the state court and the parties to gather data on the impact of Citizens United — including the rise of “super PACs” and their dominant role in campaigns — so that the justices make a decision based on a real case and controversy, as the Constitution requires.

A factual record would show that unlimited independent expenditures can have a corrupting effect, without qualifying as quid-pro-quo bribery. It’s hard to see how the court’s conservative majority could contend that these expenditures pose no threat to American democracy.

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Bullock tells U.S. Supreme Court to leave Montana spending ban intact

by kevin

February 18th, 2012

Bullock tells U.S. Supreme Court to leave Montana spending ban intact
Lee State Bureau
Charles Johnson
Published 2/15/2012

The state attorney general’s office has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to leave in place Montana’s century-old ban on independent campaign spending by corporations while the court decides whether to hear an appeal by the groups challenging it.

Attorney General Steve Bullock’s office filed its opposition Wednesday with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who oversees cases in the federal court district that includes Montana.

Bullock was responding to an attempt by American Tradition Partnership, Champion Painting and Montana Shooting Sports Association to block enforcement of the voter-passed 1912 Montana law while they ask the U.S. Supreme Court to accept an appeal of a decision by the state Supreme Court.

“The applicants’ request to this court should be understood for what it is: they ask this court to invalidate Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act—an act that has safeguarded the republican form of government in Montana for a century from the scourge of political corruption—without a record, briefing or argument,” said the legal document filed by Bullock, Assistant Attorney General James Molloy and Special Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnstone.

American Tradition Partnership and other plaintiffs had said they will suffer irreparable harm from leaving the state law in place while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to hear the appeal.

American Tradition Partnership and the other groups are asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay to suspend enforcement of the Montana law. But what they are seeking, Bullock’s document said, is “in effect an injunction against the enforcement of the act, as well as a summary reversal.”

The Montana Supreme Court, in a 5-2 ruling in December, overturned a lower court decision and reinstated the state’s ban on independent political spending by corporations.

American Tradition Partnership, formerly called Western Tradition Partnership, and the other plaintiffs challenged the Montana law. They contended the state law was unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned a federal prohibition on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions.

The three plaintiffs had asked the Montana Supreme Court to suspend enforcement of the state ban until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take the appeal. The Montana court refused.

American Tradition Partnership and the others had said that Montana’s June 5 primary elections make it “vital that planning begin now for independent expenditures before the election.”

Bullock countered that suspending Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act would irreparably harm Montanans and its residents .

“Over that century, and during the current election year, voters, political committees, candidates and corporations and their shareholders have come to rely on the simple framework that the Corrupt Practices Act provides for accounting and disclosure of corporate campaign expenditures,” the attorney general’s legal document said. “Voters, through the mediation of the press and online databases, rely on the fact that corporations engaged in campaign speech must disclose more than a veil of shifting shell corporations … but also account for the principals doing the funding.”

In a related matter, some groups issued a press release urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject pleas to throw out Montana’s law.

“In Montana, we believe in honesty and having a fair say,” said Common Cause Montana spokesman C.B. Pearson of Missoula. “The people of Montana deserve the right to their day in court on the full merits of our 100-year-old law that hasprotected us from the corrupting influence of corporate money.”

John Bonifaz, executive director of Free Speech for People, said: “The Montana Supreme Court considered a century of experience with the state’s Corrupt Practices Act. Montana deserves that same consideration from the U.S. Supreme Court.”

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Gazette opinion: Team up to protect Montana children

by kevin

February 17th, 2012

Gazette opinion: Team up to protect Montana children
Billings Gazette
Editorial
Published 2/16/2012

The most powerful statement made at a Monday press conference about Montana’s commitment to protecting children was who attended:

U.S. Marshal Darrell Bell, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcia Hurd, County Attorney Scott Twito, Sheriff Mike Linder, Police Chief Rich St. John, state Child and Family Services Division regional administrator Kevin Frank, Becky Bey of the nonprofit Center for Children and Families and Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock.

It takes all of these agencies, working together, to protect Montana children from abuse and neglect.

Bullock announced that six state Department of Justice programs and two statewide partnerships are being organized into the Montana Children’s Justice Center. The intent is to improve coordination and to use these resources more effectively to prevent and prosecute harm to children.

The Montana Children’s Justice Center will help support multidisciplinary teams called Montana Child Sexual Abuse Response Teams. These teams already have been established by 17 Montana communities to share expertise, improve training and deal more appropriately with child victims while ensuring that child abusers will be held accountable.

Teams work in Gallatin, Fergus, Mineral, Jefferson, Big Horn, Stillwater, Teton, Valley, Hill, Park, Carbon, Cascade, Beaverhead and Deer Lodge counties and on these reservations: Rocky Boy, Fort Peck, Blackfoot and Fort Belknap.

Butte, Missoula, Hamilton, Helena, Kalispell, Thompson Falls, Dillon, Anaconda and the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations have both child sexual abuse response teams and child advocacy centers where child welfare and law enforcement professionals can conduct exams or interviews in a non-threatening, child-friendly setting. Both the teams and the centers aim to avoid unnecessary repetition of interviews and exams that can further traumatize child victims.

Yellowstone County is missing from those lists. That needs to change.

Twito said he hopes to have a multidisciplinary team working on child sexual abuse cases by year’s end.

However, agencies first need to consistently report abuse for a team or center to be effective, Twito said. To that end, he is working with the Montana Association of County Attorneys to draft legislation that would require the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to report all incidents of child sexual abuse to local law enforcement. A Yellowstone County case previously reported in the Billings Gazette revealed that state law doesn’t mandate such reporting now.

Sarah Corbally, state administrator for Child and Family Services, said the department is working with Twito “to address gaps in mandatory cross-reporting.”

The Center for Children and Families, a private nonprofit organization in Billings, is seeking support to house a children’s advocacy center in downtown Billings, Bey said. The Center for Children and Families already provides sober, supportive housing for families with parents in addiction recovery, assists foster parents and works with the Yellowstone County Family Drug Treatment Court. The organization has space available in its newly acquired building and is starting fund raising to set up the advocacy center.

Yellowstone County should have these collaborative tools — a sexual abuse response team and an advocacy center — to protect our children.

As Bullock said: “Successfully protecting kids and prosecuting offenders requires all of us working together.”

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