Bennion, Knudsen square off in attorney general Republican primary: Jon Bennion

Editor's note: Watch for profiles of the the Democratic attorney general candidates in Wednesday's edition of the Havre Daily News.

The race to take Tim Fox's place as attorney general has Chief Deputy Attorney General Jon Bennion and former speaker of the Montana House of Representatives and current Roosevelt County Attorney Austin Knudsen facing off in the Republican primary.

"I am running because we need to continue to have a conservative in this office with experience to lead on critical battles like public safety issues, fighting against government overreach and protecting our most vulnerable," Bennion said. "I have the most experience on those issues and I can hit the ground running on day one because I have spent the last seven-and-a-half years working on those issues in the AG's office."

Fox has termed out of the attorney general office and is facing U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte and state Sen. Al Olszewski, M.D., of Kalispell in the Republican primary in the Montana governor's race.

Bennion said he thinks he is the best candidate because of a record of successes throughout his career not only championing conservative causes, but also finding areas where bipartisan agreement can be found on big issues that are important to any Montanan.

For example, he said, human trafficking was not being talked about before Fox, was in office. Fox made that a priority.

"We just went out and made it a priority by forming partnerships with the private sector with nonprofits to get awareness out there, and so that's the kind of issue that it doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican," Bennion said. "I have experience in providing leadership and showing success."

One of the big things the attorney general job does, he said, is managing an operation of more than 800 employees scattered around the state with diverse missions.

Those employees include the highway patrol, a division of criminal investigations, crime lab, motor vehicle division, gambling control, a lot of lawyers with the legal services division and more, he added.

"You need a manager at the top that can set the priorities, who understands you can't solve everyone's problems, but you can if you focus your limited resources and your personnel on some problems you can have an impact on just every Montanans' life," he said. "I think that's one of the key things is electing somebody that's going to manage the Department of Justice in an effective, fiscally conservative way and that's what I'm ready to do."

He said if elected there are some things he would enhance such as substance abuse.

One thing, Bennion said, he feels like there is a void with the state is a concerted collaborative effort on prevention.

"I think the government could do a heck of a lot more to get on the same page on what's our prevention strategy and then enlisting the support of nonprofits, churches, employees and get everyone singing from the same songbook when it comes to prevention," he added. "I think that is something that a lot of people can get behind because just about everybody sees the impacts of substance abuse in their communities."

Another area of success he would like to step up, he said, is in where environmental groups have sued over management of public lands.

He said the attorney general's office has said that state wants to make sure public lands are responsibly managed, that they are not burning up every summer and that they can create jobs and recreational opportunities.

He said he would like to intervene in more lawsuits over public land management.

"Our forests are in the worst shape they have been in four years, and we could use a heck of a lot more management when it comes to our public lands," Bennion said. "As a land board member, your primary duty is to maximize revenue going into fund schools. It's a good chunk where we get salaries to pay teachers, to educate our kids and so that has to be the constitutional focus, the constitutional duty of somebody on the land board."

He said one of his projects is the comprehensive data analysis of missing persons that any state has ever done.

"We are getting ready to release the results of phase one and what a lot of that analysis is going to show is, No. One, it confirms some of what we already know which is indigenous peoples go missing at a rate much higher than non-indegeous peoples, but it's also revealing a heck of a lot more about the issue of missing persons, where are the hotspots - we are comparing the missing persons data against data with the child and family services system, so people that who may have been abused or neglected, we have revealed that so many of the people that go missing actually go missing more than once," he said. "... So I'm super excited about that level of analysis, because you can't come up with appropriate and effective solutions without understanding the breadth of the problem."

He said the results of phase one will probably be released in about two weeks.

He said it's a critical role that the attorney general does in defending or prosecuting lawsuits that go before the state and in the U.S. Supreme Court.

He added that for the first four years of Attorney General Tim Fox being in office coincided  with the four final years of the Obama Administration with many issues of disagreement with that administration approach to regulatory actions.

"The attorney general can be an incredibly effective check and balance on government overreach whether it's the federal government, whether it's another state like Washington who is trying to close its ports to Montana, Wyoming coal or against local government overreach," Bennion said. "The forum in the U.S. Supreme Court is very important and I'm admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court and my primary opponent is not."

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Born in Billings in 1978;  lives in Clancy 

Bachelor's degree, political science, 2001, University of Montana; law degree 2005, University of Montana

Missoula County Attorney's Office during law school, clerked for state district court judge for a year out of law school; in-house counsel for the Montana Chamber of Commerce for seven years; Montana Attorney General's office for the last seven and a half years, last two years chief deputy attorney general. Republican redistricting commissioner from 2009-2013. 

Married to Jessi Bennion since 2004; one son, 10.