This is part two of a two-day series looking at the five men running in the attorney general primary race.

Lee Bruner and Tim Fox have almost nothing bad to say about each other.

The two Republican lawyers are in a gentlemanly showdown to be the GOP's attorney general candidate in November. The primary race, which has kept both Fox and Bruner busy for months, but hardly measured a ripple outside political circles, will be decided June 3.

Fox and Bruner have a lot in common: Both are Republicans in towns where Republicans aren't necessarily the norm. Bruner lives in Democratic stronghold Butte, while Fox practices law in Helena another dark blue spot on the Montana political map.

As Republicans running for the same office, they understandably hold some similar positions. But Fox and Bruner are hardly copies of each other. From their backgrounds to their legal philosophies, both men say they can bring unmatched strengths to the office.

Lee Bruner: Montana's

story must be told

From coal development to gun rights, Bruner, 47, says he's got plans for the attorney general's office. A political newcomer, the sixth-generation Montanan, one-time underground miner and U.S. Air Force veteran said a lifetime in Butte as a Republican has taught him to embrace good ideas wherever he finds them.

On the environment, Bruner said he would use his spot on the state Land Board to encourage development of the Otter Creek coal tracts, enormous swathes of undeveloped state-owned coal in eastern Montana. Such talk is a favorite among Republicans, but Bruner said he will also push for things to make the coal more competitive with nearby developed fields in Wyoming, like working to develop railroad if that was necessary. He said he supports technologies that capture carbon dioxide, the main pollutant behind global warming that comes from burning fossil fuels like coal, but cautioned that many of those are more hype than reality.

"I've been studying some of the deep well injection," he said. "That looks promising and has some potential."

He said the Justice Department must do more to go after Internet predators preying on children. Bruner suggested the attorney general ought to launch a public education plan for parents, help local law enforcement better target Internet predators and coordinate counseling for child victims of such crimes.

He also said the attorney general ought to help local counties and their elder abuse task forces.

"Some of those programs are really struggling," Bruner said, adding that he'd go to bat for them for more money, including more money from state coffers.

Bruner said he would also pay particular attention to two immense legal discussions that will likely continue during the term of Montana's next attorney general: one dealing with medical lawsuits and the other with gun rights.

Montana law currently caps pain and suffering money awarded people injured by doctors or hospital negligence at $250,000. Bruner, who specializes, in part, in representing doctors and hospitals, said that cap will almost certainly be challenged as unconstitutional in the near future. Bruner believes he is the only candidate ready to defend the case.

The second issue deals with a case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that begins to clarify the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Bruner said he thinks the case is only the beginning of a process in which Second Amendment rights will be better defined.

Current Attorney General Mike McGrath signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the case signed by many other states arguing that handgun bans are unconstitutional.

But Bruner believes Montana's next attorney general must do more. Gun control advocates seeking to frame the debate largely come from urban areas with more crime. They argue that guns play into the crime rate. It's important for states like Montana to represent the other side. We have a long, safe history of gun ownership, Bruner said. A large percentage of Montanans own guns, yet our state does not have an urban-style crime problem.

"Montana has a story to tell there," he said. "Guns don't create the crime problems they're seeing. This will have a huge impact in Montana, absolutely."

Tim Fox: A return

to public service

Fox, 51, says serving as attorney general would allow him to again represent the people of Montana, a job he relished when working as a lawyer at the Department of Environmental Quality under Republican Gov. Marc Racicot in the late 1990s.

Fox says he wants to beef up things like the crime lab and the five-person Department of Justice division that helps mostly smaller county attorney's offices prosecute complicated cases like murder they might not have much experience with. But Fox said he wouldn't necessarily ask for more tax money to do so until he is certain there's no money currently going to waste.

"I think it's difficult for any manager or leader to walk across the street (to the Capitol building) and ask (the Legislature) for more money," he said, adding that, at this point, he didn't have any examples now of poorly-spent money in the agency.

He said he would be an advocate for law enforcement and would work to get more stable federal funding for Montana's federally-funded drug task forces.

"We need a real strong advocate in the attorney general's office for that kind of federal funding because we depend on it," he said. "We have a lot of federal land and a vast, wide open space that requires we have adequate staff and facilities to fight the war on drugs in Montana."

Finally, Fox said, he would try to strike laws that don't work or are unenforceable, like the current law banning automated phone calls by political candidates. That law is routinely broken by candidates from both parties; violators often say the law is unconstitutional and little, if anything is ever done to enforce the law.

"Rather than having statutes being ignored," Fox said, "we should do something about it. We should either fix it or make it so it is no longer on the books."

A Hardin native and youngest of five children in an Irish family, Fox came to the law with an eclectic background. With a bachelor's degree in geology, he first worked in the booming oil fields around Evanston, Wyo., in the early 1980s, before seriously training as a hurdler for the 1984 Olympics.

After failing to make the team, Fox began working on a master's degree in public administration at the University of Montana before attending law school there in 1987.

As a lawyer, Fox has mostly represented corporate clients like banks, but he's worked for all kinds of people, including hundreds of poor low-level criminals in Billings when he was a city court public defender there.

Among his favorite clients is the state of Montana, Fox said, whom he represented as a DEQ lawyer. He said it made "hair on his neck stand up" to walk into a courtroom and tell a judge he is there on "behalf of the people of Montana."

"It was a tremendous honor," he said.

Fox also has political chops. In 1995, he and his then-wife Mary Jo Fox came to Helena to work on Racicot's gubernatorial campaign. His political connections show: Fox has endorsements from several prominent Republicans, including former Govs. Racicot and Judy Martz, and former Sen. Conrad Burns.

Lee Bruner

Political party: Republican

Age: 47

Birthdate and place: Dec. 18, 1960, Deer Lodge

Home: Butte, also lives weekends on family ranch near Whitehall.

Occupation: Attorney, Poore, Roth & Robinson.

Family: Wife, Pollann; children Robert, 10, Michael, 9, John, 6.

Education: Butte Central High School, 1980; physics degree, Montana State University-Bozeman, 1992; University of Montana School of Law, 1995.

Past employment: construction/carpenter jobs, 1980-1986; 1986-1990, United States Air Force; attorney, Poore, Roth & Robinson, 1995-present.

Military: Sergeant, U.S. Air Force, 1986-1990.

Political experience: This is Bruner's first run for public office.

Tim Fox

Political party: Republican.

Age: 51.

Birthdate and place: Aug. 22, 1957, in Billings.

Home: Helena.

Occupation: Attorney in the Helena law firm of Gough, Shanahan, Johnson & Waterman, where he has worked since 2003, becoming a partner in 2005.

Family: Wife, Karen, and children: Anna Emmert, Michael McMahon, Laura McMahon and Caroline Fox.

Education: Graduated from Hardin High School, 1976; bachelor's degree in geology, 1981, University of Montana; law degree, UM, 1987.

Past employment: Vice president and general counsel, Mountain West Bank, Helena, 1999-2003; acting division administrator, state Department of Environmental Quality, 1998; attorney, Department of Environmental Quality, 1998-99; solo private practice, Billings and Helena, 1993-96; environmental coordinator, state Board of Oil and Gas Conservation in Billings, 1990-93; associate attorney, Moulton, Bellingham, Longo & Mather law firm in Billings 1988-90; law clerk to Montana Supreme Court Justice L.C. Gulbrandson, 1987-88.

Military: None.

Political experience: Has not run for public office previously, but has been active in Republican politics and helped GOP candidates.

Reporter Jennifer McKee: 443-4920 or jennifer.mckee@lee.net