Two rivals of Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, in the campaign for the Democratic attorney general’s nomination, raised questions Thursday over her use of an internal database from her office to send thousands of e-mails soliciting political support and campaign contributions.
Her two Democratic opponents — former state Senate Majority Leader George Jepsen and state Rep. Cameron Staples — both commented on a Sunday Courant story about Bysiewicz’s use of a database assembled by her office of 36,000 constituents’ names, including about 9,900 e-mail addresses. In the past year her campaign committee sent thousands of campaign e-mails to people in the database.
“This kind of ‘gaming the system’ is what makes people cynical about government and politics,” Jepsen said. “The average citizen who innocently uses government services in the normal course of events should not have to fear ending up on a politican’s fund-raising list.”
Staples said: “I think the public needs to be assured that people working for the state are working on the public’s business at all times, and that’s sort of a larger question that I think that this case presents.”
Bysiewicz said what she did was legal because the database is a public document.
In 2009 Bysiewicz had her campaign committee submit a letter to her office, requesting the electronic database under the Freedom of Information Act. “As with any public document in the possession of the … office, we are required to turn that document over once a formal FOI request has been made,” she said. Jepsen didn’t dispute the legality but called it inappropriate.
The database in question includes people who have had contact with Bysiewicz’s office, largely to ask for information or help, since her first year there, 1999. It is not one of her office’s well-known databases, such as the voter registration lists that candidates obtain via FOI requests for campaigning.
Few outside Bysiewicz’s office knew it existed until Sunday’s Courant story saying current Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is investigating a complaint from a citizen who got unwanted campaign e-mails. Blumenthal is not seeking re-election, and is running for the U.S. Senate.
It’s the latest of several problems for Bysiewicz. First, a few critics questioned whether she meets the requirement of “10 years’ active practice” as a lawyer in Connecticut to serve as attorney general. She has been registered as a lawyer for 23 years – six in corporate or private practice in the state.
Then she asked Blumenthal for a legal opinion. He replied that the law is unclear, but still requires more than being registered as a lawyer to qualify as “active practice.” He said it would take a judge’s ruling to settle the matter. Bysiewicz said afterward that she has no plans to seek such a ruling. But now Democratic state chairwoman Nancy DiNardo says she is considering having the party go to court to seek such a ruling to avoid complications later.
After Jepsen and Staples weighed in with their comments Thursday, Bysiewicz had her office issue the following statement:
“I have always been an advocate of open and transparent government. As was pointed out this week by the executive director of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, state statutes clearly spell out that any correspondence our office receives from any member of the public is a public document, without exception. That means we are required to keep records of every constituent contact we receive. It is not a choice I have made as Secretary of the State, but I am actually required to keep a record of these public correspondences by Connecticut state law.
“The database maintained by our office is not only an appropriate public expenditure, but it is essential to serving and communicating with the thousands of constituents who seek our help every year. These constituents include Connecticut voters, federal, state and local elected officials, and thousands of businesses that our office serves and gives legal advice to every day. This constituent database has benefitted taxpayers by making … this part of the operation of our office much more efficient and open to public view, something that I have committed to as long as I have been in public service. It was established to benefit the function of the Secretary of the State’s office and it will remain in place once my successor takes over in January of 2011.
“Our office maintains numerous files and databases that are routinely given to Connecticut citizens and public entities who request them subject to the Freedom of Information Act. As with any public document in the possession of the Secretary of the State’s office, we are required to turn that document over once a formal FOI request has been made.”
Bysiewicz’s 2006 re-election committee used e-mails – but Bysiewicz said none of the e-mail addresses back then came from her state office. “We never used any of the ones that we collected in our office,” she said in a Saturday interview.