Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. Tuesday — pushing it back from noon, which it had originally been scheduled — to release a formal opinion requested by Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz about the state’s legal requirements to serve as attorney general.
Blumenthal is not seeking re-election as he runs for the U.S. Senate, and Bysiewicz, his fellow Democrat, declared her candidacy three weeks ago for the party’s nomination to replace him.
But immediately, questions arose as to whether she meets the requirement in a state statute that Connecticut’s attorney general must have “at least 10 years’ active practice at the bar of this state.” A few critics have said that Bysiewicz does not meet that “active practice” requirement even though she has been registered as an attorney here for 23 years.
Before Bysiewicz became secretary of the state in 1999, she had worked for eight years for two law firms and a corporation’s legal department – six of those years in Connecticut. Bysiewicz and her supporters say that all 11 of her years in office should count as “active practice” because although she doesn’t need to be a lawyer in the job, she and her staff dispense legal advice on laws affecting elections and corporations.
Nearly two weeks ago, Bysiewicz, in her official capacity as Secretary of the State, asked Blumenthal for the opinion on statutory and constitutional requirements for the office of attorney general that are personally relevant to her.
In the meantime, politicians and commentators have speculated that no matter what Blumenthal says, the issue may end up in court. That’s because his opinion is only advisory, not binding, whatever unofficial political weight it may carry.
Both Republicans and Democrats — including Bysiewicz’s intra-party rival for the attorney general’s nomination, former state Senate majority leader George Jepsen — have said the only binding resolution would come in state Superior Court after a request for either a declaratory judgment or injunction. They have said that such a court action could come from a competing candidate challenging her eligibility, or even from a Democrat seeking to resolve the issue before November’s election.
Other issues have arisen to feed the controversy. As reported previously in the Courant:
Bysiewicz last week submitted a personal check for $55 to the state’s judicial department to rectify an error she says she made in 2006 – when she obtained a 50-percent exemption from a $110-a-year professional fee by filing a form saying that she didn’t practice law as an occupation.
But that still left her with additional issues to explain:
–Newly surfaced judicial department records show that she didn’t just file for the exemption in 2006, but also did it in 2007 and 2008 by signing identical statements that she didn’t practice law “as an occupation” in those years, either. However, she wrote a letter to the judicial department Monday – which was released to The Courant Tuesday – in which she asked that all three filings be disregarded.
–Meanwhile, criticism has mounted over the fact that Bysiewicz uses taxpayer money to have her office pay the annual $110 professional fees not only for her, but for seven or eight staff lawyers in the executive-branch agency. Her office policy contrasts from that of the current attorney general, Blumenthal, who requires that the 200 or so lawyers who work for him pay their own fees, out of their own pockets.
Bysiewicz has been unwilling to talk to the Courant about the issue of her fees, and how she could have made the incorrect erxemption-form filings, since the issue arose. Her campaign spokeswoman simply calls it a mistake that Bysiewicz has rectified.