Steve Bullock

Steve Bullock (2019)

Stephen Clark "Steve" Bullock (* 11. April 1966 in Missoula , Montana ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party , and since January 7, 2013 Governor of the US state of Montana.

The lawyer became Attorney General Montanas in 2009 . He ran in his party's primary election for the 2020 presidential election in 2019 and announced in March 2020 that he would run for the United States Senate in November .

Family, education and work

Steve Bullock grew up in Helena , Montana after his parents divorced in elementary school with his single mother. There he attended Helena High School , where he was the student representative and was politically active, including as an envoy to the Montana Board of Public Education and in 1983 as a youth speaker for the YMCA Youth and Government Program. In 1984 he graduated from school.

He first went to California to study at Claremont McKenna College, east of Los Angeles , from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics , and later to Columbia University in New York City , where he obtained his Juris Doctorate in 1994 .

After graduating, Bullock joined a New York law firm. In 1996 he moved back to Montana and became chief legal advisor to then Secretary of State of Montana, Mike Cooney . After a year he started working in the Montana Justice Department; he was Deputy Attorney General from 1997 to 2001 under Attorney General Joe Mazurek .

From 2001 to 2004, Bullock worked as an attorney with the law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, DC . He was also a visiting professor at George Washington University . From 2004 to 2008 Bullock ran his own law firm in Helena, where he represented the interests of employees and medium-sized companies.

The Catholic Bullock has been married since 1999 and has two daughters and a son with his wife Lisa Downs Bullock.

Political career

Attorney General Montanas

In 2000, Bullock ran for the first time for the office of Attorney General of Montana, but was defeated in the internal party primary of the Democrats Mike McGrath.

In 2008, Bullock tried again for the office of Attorney General and was able to defeat his Republican challenger Tim Fox with 52.64 percentage points. He then worked as Attorney General from January 2009 until he took office as Governor of Montana in January 2013.

Governor Montana

Governor Bullock speaking in August 2016

In 2011, Bullock announced his candidacy in the following gubernatorial election in autumn 2012 to succeed his party colleague Brian Schweitzer . After winning the primary, he was officially nominated as a candidate by the Democrats in summer 2012. In the election for governor on November 6, 2012, Bullock succeeded with 49 to 47 percentage points and 8674 votes ahead of his opponent, former Congressman Rick Hill . In the parallel presidential election in Montana, Republican Mitt Romney was ahead of incumbent Barack Obama . In his election campaign, Bullock focused, among other things, on local economic development, solid state finances, high occupational safety standards and transparency within the government.

In accordance with the schedule, Bullock was sworn in as the 24th governor of Montana on January 7, 2013. Despite his election victory, the Republicans received majorities in both houses of the state legislature . Therefore, as governor, Bullock is reliant on cooperation with the Republicans in the legislative process. However, the republican majorities are not enough to be able to overrule a governor's veto without the help of the democratic parliamentarians. One speaks in this constellation of a "divided government" ( divided government ) . Bullock's lieutenant governor was initially Joe Walsh . However, he was appointed the new US Senator by Bullock in February 2014 after the previous incumbent Max Baucus was appointed American ambassador to China . Due to the unscheduled vacancy of the Senate seat, it fell to the governor to appoint a temporary successor. Bullock appointed Angela McLean as the new lieutenant governor with the approval of the legislature . She remained in office until her resignation in January 2016. Bullock then appointed Mike Cooney to lieutenant governor, who remained in his post after the 2016 gubernatorial election. Cooney was previously a member of the Montana Senate and was its president between 2007 and 2009 .

On November 8, 2016, Bullock won again the election as governor of Montana against the Republican (among later Congressman ) Greg Gianforte with 50.2% to 46.4% of the votes cast. He owed his victory to high popularity ratings. The gubernatorial election was viewed more as a person vote, as the state leans more towards Republicans in presidential elections. In Montana, for example, Donald Trump was able to prevail in the parallel election for the US president with an almost 20 percentage point lead over the Democrat Hillary Clinton . Acting Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney acted as Bullock's running mate . In January 2017, Steve Bullock was sworn in for a second term as governor.

As governor, Bullock implemented various measures to promote the economy. It was thus possible to keep the unemployment rate below the national average. His government established initiatives for further training and qualification programs on the labor market . In addition, companies receive tax breaks if they employ participants in such qualification measures. Another focus puts the governor on equal pay for women and men ( equal pay ). So Bullock issued a decree that companies for government contracts must ensure equal pay for women and men. In addition, a complaints office was set up under the newly founded alliance Equal Pay MT , to which cases of differently paid (with the same) work can be reported. The governor is also focusing on expanding the infrastructure. In his second term, Bullock plans to initiate a $ 200 million program.

In agricultural Montana, Bullock's government also invested millions of dollars in research aimed at increasing crop yields and ensuring soil health. He also made several trips abroad to improve economic cooperation in the field of agriculture. Montana exports some of its products abroad, mainly to Asia.

Bullock represents liberal positions on socio-political issues. He spoke out in favor of legalizing same-sex marriages and supports the right to abortion (“ Pro-Choice ”). Bullock also advocates more transparency in campaign donations. The Disclose Act of 2015 , signed by the governor, requires candidates for public office in Montana to disclose the origin of their campaign contributions. The law was passed with votes from both parties.

2020 presidential and senate candidacy

In July 2017 founded Bullock, whose term is limited as governor in two periods, a political Aktionskommittee ( Political Action Committee ; PAC) called Big Sky Values PAC , the fundraising allowed for political candidates at the national level. US media took this as an indication that Bullock was planning to run for president in 2020 . In May 2019, Bullock announced that he would be running in his party's presidential primary for the November 2020 election. As the 21st candidate, he was one of the latest applicants in a large field and explained as the motivation for his candidacy that he had managed to implement left-wing liberal politics through pragmatism in a Trump-friendly, rural state with a Republican-dominated state legislature . Bullock never managed to get out of the low single-digit percentage range in the polls. At the beginning of December 2019, he announced his withdrawal from the candidacy.

On March 9, 2020, on the last day of the application deadline, Bullock declared his candidacy for the United States Senate after repeatedly rejecting it. In the 2020 election, he is running for the seat previously held by Republican mandate holder Steve Daines . Bullock is considered a serious challenger because of his personal popularity, although Daines is still a favorite because of the structural dominance of the Republicans in Montana's federal elections. The other US Senator, Montana, is Democrat Jon Tester , who was narrowly confirmed in the 2018 election . Bullock will meet at least four competitors in the party primary for the Senate on June 2, 2020.

Web links

Commons : Steve Bullock  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Governor (English)
• Personal Website (English)
• Steve Bullock in the National Governors Association (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James M. Lindsay: Meet Steve Bullock, Democratic Presidential Candidate. In: Council on Foreign Relations , September 30, 2019.
2. ^ Democrat Steve Bullock of Montana wins re-election as governor , Washington Post, November 9, 2016
3. ↑ Jobs and the Economy ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , stevebullock.com (English) 
4. ↑ Advancing Montana Agriculture ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , stevebullock.com (English) 
5. ↑ Clean and Fair Elections ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , stevebullock.com (English) 
6. ↑ As Party Drifts Left, Pragmatic Democratic Governors Have Eye on White House , The New York Times, July 17, 2017
7. ↑ Nathaniel Rakich: How Steve Bullock Could Win The 2020 Democratic Primary. In: FiveThirtyEight , May 14, 2019.
8. ↑ Martin Pengelly: Montana governor Steve Bullock drops out of the Democratic presidential race. In: The Guardian , December 2, 2019.
9. ↑ James Arkin: Democrats face Trump-state gauntlet to take Senate in 2020. In: Politico , November 28, 2018.
10. ↑ Quinn Scanlan: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock announces Senate campaign, hopes to take out Republican incumbent. In: ABC News , March 9, 2020.