Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s controversial, taxpayer-funded office database identifies 2,500 people who served as delegates to Democratic Party nominating conventions in recent years — potentially useful information to Bysiewicz in her candidacy for the Democratic state attorney general’s nomination.
Here is the number of Republican delegates who are identified on Bysiewicz’s database of more than 36,000 names: Zero.
The imbalance in her database was reported in Sunday’s Government Watch column, which can be read by clicking here.
A Democratic rival, and the state GOP chairman both said the disclosure proves that Bysiewicz has used her public office for personal political gain. A Democratic legislative critic said if he ever ordered his staff to prepare such a list at taxpayers’ expense, he would expect to be “led out of my office in handcuffs if someone found it.”
But Bysiewicz insists that the database — who also was the subject of a Courant story last Tuesday about its “special notes” on the personal characteristics and political connections of citizens — is a nonpartisan document that benefits taxpayers.
Bysiewicz has declined to answer questions in interviews for the past week, and, on Friday, her office issued a statement saying that it would have included data on Republican delegates if it had received such information from the party, but it hadn’t. However, the office produced no document showing it asked the GOP for it.
The database identifies both Democratic and Republican office-holders at the municipal level, as well as local members of Republican and Democratic town committees.
Why, then, does it only identify recent Democratic delegates to state, congressional and national nominating conventions — with whom it makes sense for a candidate seeking the party’s nomination to stay in touch? And why does it ignore recent Republican delegates — who will have no part in whether she wins the Democratic nomination for AG?
Here is the statement issued Friday by Bysiewicz’s deputy secretary of the state, Lesley Mara: “Our office typically receives that information from both the Republican and Democratic parties. If we don’t have a convention delegate list from the Republican Party, that means we did not receive one. If we had received such a list we would have entered it into the database. If we did not ask the Republican Party for its delegate list, it was an oversight on the part of this office.”
Mara also said in the statement: “Of the more than 36,000 people in the contact database, there are currently 16,497 who are not affiliated with any political party. There are also another 11,574 people affiliated with the Democratic Party and 8,394 affiliated with the Republican Party in the database, which is generally reflective of statewide voter registration statistics in Connecticut.”
Bysiewicz had her campaign committee obtain the database last year from her state office via a Freedom of Information Act request. The database includes the name of political and government officials, as well as people who have made inquiries with Bysiewicz’s office on subjects such as the areas it supervises — the conduct of elections or registration of businesses.
Bysiewicz’s campaign has been using that database to e-mail solicitations for political support and campaign contributions. Not everyone likes the fact that a contact with Bysiewicz’s state office results in newsletters and solicitations from her camapiagn committee. One citizen complained to state election authorities, saying Bysiewicz has used her state office for political purposes.
Bysiewicz denies anything improper was done, saying the database is a public document that she had to turn over to anyone who asked for it. The database was little-known outside of her office — and, until The Courant wrote about its existence and how it was being used last month, only Bysiewicz’s campaign committee had requested it under the Freedom of Information Act.
The citizen complaint now is being investigated by current Attorney General Richard Blumenthal — who will vacate his office after he runs for U.S. Senate this year.
Bysiewicz also is embroiled in a court controversy. A lawsuit, in which she wants a judge to rule that she meets a statutory requirement for the attorney general to have 10 years’ experience in the “active practice” of law in Connecticut, is scheduled to continue this week with its third preliminary hearing.