Author: Jon Lender

Republican gubernatorial candidate Thomas Foley called on the governor and legislature Wednesday to adopt fundamental changes to reduce spending – by at least 5 percent, or about $1 billion – and regain control of a state government that taxpayers no longer can afford.

“During the boom times our state government became something different from what the citizens want and expect from it,” he said at a Wednesday press conference in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. “Rather than being thrifty, our legislature became profligate. We are now paying the price with a state government we cannot afford and commitments to our citizens that we cannot fulfill. We must reduce the size and cost of our state government in the same way most Connecticut families have cut back on luxuries and reduced other nonessential expenses.”

“Jobs and out-of-control spending here in Hartford are not being taken seriously enough here at the Capitol,” said Foley, a businessman who served more than two years as former President George W. Bush’s appointee as U.S. ambassador to Ireland.

He said real spending cuts need to be made, not just shifts between accounts or delays of payments. The state’s economic recovery largely depends on this, he said, because continuing on the current path hurts the business climate and will continue to cost the state jobs.

“I encourage the governor and legislature to seriously and soon consider these actions,” Foley said. “Things will not get better in Connecticut until they do.”

Foley said the Democrat-controlled legislature has continued to burden businesses with mandates that will keep entrepreneurs from wanting to locate here. For example, he said there are 53 state mandates for health care coverage, which he said are among “third-rail issues that make Connecticut radioactive” as unfriendly to business.

Out of those 53 mandates, he mentioned two specifically: “providing wigs … to people who’ve had chemotherapy” and “requiring the same level of coverage for psychiatric treatment … as for medical treatment.”

“Every one of them sounds good, and sounds like things that you would want people to have — but when you add them all up together, it results in health care coverage in Connecticut being much more expensive than in many other states.  So it costs the state jobs — and what’s most on people’s minds are their jobs and the state of the economy.”

But asked if he would end those two mandates — providing wigs, and requiring parity between psychological and medical benefits — he would not commit himself.

He answered: “Well, I think what a governor does is provide leadership and a direction… . But I don’t think the governor decides the details of where those cuts are going to be made. And as governor, I would pull together the representatives from the legislature and all the people affected, and come out in a spirit of compromise to make the reductions that need to be made that shares the burden evenly and doesn’t harm any parties disproportionately.”

As a follow-up question to that answer, he was asked if, as governor, he would recommend that legislators eliminate those two health-care mandates — the wigs and the psychological benefits’ parity.  He responded: “I would recommend that they would all be considered in toto with the idea of figuring out ways to make health care coverage in Connecticut less expensive.”

So, he was asked, that means he’s not ready to recommend the elimination of either of the two specific mandates he mentioned as part of the problem?

“I’m not,” he said.

Foley also said state employees’ health and retirement benefits are out of control. “In the good times, our government was more generous than it could afford to be with state workers’ benefits,” he said. “The annual cost of health care benefits for a state worker with a family of four is now over $27,000 a year. A generous private-sector plan for the same family of four costs a  typical employer about $14,000.”

“The difference between the state workers’ health care benefits and a competitive private-sector plan costs the state about $500 million dollars a year,” he said. “Health care and retirement costs for state workers cost the average Connecticut family nearly $1,200 per year and that’s on an average household income of $68.000. … This is simply too much. We must work with the state workeres’ representatives to bring the cost of their health care insurance and retirement benefits in line.”

Foley said that Connecticut’s costs for Medicaid — including health care for the poor, disabled and elderly — are much higher than the national average for states, and a greater effort is needed to find out why. He also said that the state should exercise its regulatory discretion with state-chartered bank to encourage more lending to small businesses to create jobs.

He mentioned two ways to immediately cut $130 million a year from the state budget — by privatizing extremely expensive services now provided by two state facilities, Southbury Training School and the Riverview Hospital in Middletown for young people with mental illnesses.

Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, another leading contender for the Republican gubernatorial nomination this year, issued a statement in response later, criticizing Foley for what he described as a lack of specificity, decisiveness and practicality.

Fedele said: “What stands out about Tom’s remarks today is that he said he would hand off the responsibility for making spending cuts to the legislature.”  And, Fedele said, Foley had no answer “when asked about the only two specific cuts mentioned in his remarks” – the wigs for cancer patients on chemotherapy and the parity between medical and psychological insurance.

The closings of Riverview and Southbury Training School could not be accomplished as readily as Foley described, because both facilities are staffed by unionized state employees who enjoy a no-layoff agreement until 2011, Fedele said in a statement released through a campaign spokesman.

“He puts out a big number [for how much to cut spending] but he doesn’t really seem to know how to go about doing it,” Fedele said. “If there’s anything we don’t need its more funny numbers and the deferring of tough decisions to the legislature.”  Fedele said he would make the tough decisions on cuts himself.

Besides Foley and Fedele, the other five candidates for the GOP gubernatorial nomination Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, Newington Mayor Jeff Wright, longtime business executive R. Nelson “Oz” Griebel, former U.S. Rep. Lawrence DeNardis and Chester First Selectman Thomas E. Marsh. The incumbent Republican governor, M. Jodi Rell, is not seeking re-election.

Meanwhile, Foley’s statement even drew fire from one of five candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy. The Democrat blasted Foley’s suggestion that the legislature consider eliminating health-care related mandates and mentioned the ones requiring employers to provide wigs to people undergoing chemotherapy, and to require the same level of coverage for mental health treatment as they do medical.

Said Malloy: “This is really what Tom Foley thinks we ought to do?  Have a conversation about eliminating insurance coverage for people undergoing chemotherapy and people battling mental illness?  Good grief.  It’s no secret that Connecticut will have some tough budget decisions in the months and years ahead – but that doesn’t mean we should throw common sense and compassion out the window.

“First, Tom indicated we should consider eliminating the mandates…then he seemed to say that it might be the Legislature that should do it…then he seemed to not really understand what he was saying. 

“It’s disappointing that someone running for public office can have this many positions on one subject in such a short period of time.  Connecticut needs people running government who actually have an understanding and belief in what good government can do – like mandating coverage for things that matter to those most in need.”

The chairman of the state’s ethics board violated ethics statutes by making $250 worth of campaign contributions to Gov. M. Jodi Rell and two Republican state legislative candidates in 2008 — and on Friday he said he expects to be fined by his own agency.

G. Kenneth Bernhard, a former Republican state representative from Westport who now is chairman of the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board, made that statement a day after a Courant reporter called him Thursday night to ask about the contributions shown in campaign financing records.

He said he has no plans to resign.

Records show that Bernhard, who has been on the ethics board since January 2008 and became chairman last fall, made a $100 contribution on Oct. 20, 2008, to Rell — who then had an exploratory campaign committee for a re-election candidacy that she now has dropped. He made an earlier $100 donation that year to a Republican state Senate candidate, Vincent Marino of Orange, who lost that year’s election. He also contributed $50 to Nitzy Cohen, a Republican state House candidate in his hometown district.

State laws say that members of the ethics board, and employees of the Office of State Ethics that it oversees, are banned from making campaign contributions to state officials who fall under state ethics laws — as the governor does and state legislators do, as well as virtually all other state officials and state employees.

Bernhardt Friday acknowledged the contributions but said he didn’t know at the time that he shouldn’t make them. He said he expects that the ethics board will appoint a three-member subcommittee next week to investigate his conduct, and that he will be fined. The law establishes a maximum fine of $10,000 per violation.

Late Friday afternoon, Bernhard issued this statement: “It was brought to my attention yesterday that because I made small contributions to three political campaigns I may have violated the state code of ethics that prohibits someone in my position from making any political contributions in state races.’

“The contributions were done openly with full disclosure,” he said. “When I made these contributions as a gesture of support for the political process, I was unaware of the prohibition. As a member of the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board, I have been entrusted with great responsibility and I am very distressed at having technically violated the coede, even as everything was in public view and inadvertent. I expect that my conduct will be evaluated and handled in the same fashion as everyone else who is subject to the code.”

The director of the Office of State Ethics, Carol Carson, said Friday afternoon that she had discussions with Bernhard since The Courant called him Thursday night, and they both declined comment on how it would be handled until the end of the workday Friday — when she issued a press release that included his statement.

When Bernhard was reached by The Courant Thursday night about the donations, he at first expressed uncertainty about whether and when he made them. He then said that Marino is his law partner, and Rell is “a friend,” and he probably hadn’t given as much thought to the donations as he should have.

The issue of political activities by members of the board and the ethics office arose in December. That was when the board, in a 6-2 vote, approved a legal opinion saying that the ethics watchdogs are permitted by law them to perform volunteer campaign work — even for candidates covered by state ethics statutes.

Such candidates would be subject to regulation, and possible investigation over ethics complaints, by the very ethics watchdogs who helped their campaigns. The issue in the legal opinion involved volunteering in campaigns, not donating to them. The ban on financial contributions was never in question, and the issue was whether that long-recognized prohibition also should extend to volunteer campaign work. 

The Courant published a Government Watch column about the issue last Sunday, and it immediately became controversial. Key legislators said such political activities by any of the nine ethics board members, or by any of the 18 ethics office employees, could create an appearance of bias by watchdogs who are supposed to be impartial — and could diminish public confidence in decisions by the board and agency.

The legislators vowed to introduce a bill during the current legislative session to close what they called a loophole in the law by explicitly banning such volunteer political activities by the ethics watchdogs. They said that when legislators created the new ethics board and agency in 2005, they intended to ban political activities as well as contributions by the ethics watchdogs.

When Bernhard first answered the phone Thursday night to talk to The Courant, he said the recent, controversial legal opinion was based strictly on the wording of the law, adding that he agreed completely with the proposal to close the loophole and ban volunteer work as well as contributions. That was before he was asked about the contributions in state records, which The Courant encountered when reviewing state reports in following up on last week’s column.

Asked what he planned to do concerning the donations, he said he might talk with Carson, and mentioned the possibility of some suitable “mea culpa.” A day later, it was issued in the form of his statement and Carson’s press release.

Bernhard elaborated on the press release in a phone interview late Friday afternoon. 

“The investigation is going to consist of me producing three checks which I don’t deny I’ve written,” he said. “Then it’s up to them to decide what to do. … Inadvertent violations are still violations, and I expect that there will be a fine.”

The subcommittee has several options, including asking a member of the ethics office’s enforcement staff to investigate, reviewing the matter itself, or referring the matter to another state agency or an outside lawyer.

Bernhard said he does not consider his conduct serious enough to be considered a “classic” ethics violation. “The [ethics] code sets parameters which we’ve all agreed to live with. There’s an implication with ethics that there’s a moral component to it. Nothing that I did was immoral. It was inadvertent. There should be a penalty, but I don’t think it rises to the level of an ethics violation, in the classic sense of an ethics violation,” he said.

He added: “It’s similar to a lobbyist being late one day in filing his report; it’s a violation, it’s dealt with, we deal with it — the idea being that we’re endeavoring to get 100 percent compliance. I made the contributions and reported them thinking that they were permissible. I was wrong.”

Asked why he didn’t bring up the donations in December when the board was discussing the legal opinion concerning volunteer campaign work, he said he didn’t remember. “Did I recall that I had written three small checks two year ago? I didn’t remember. I never thought about it.”

State Sen. Andrew W. Roraback, R-Goshen, Friday became the second Republican to express formal interest in his party’s nomination for attorney general, calling himself a “country lawyer” and “moderate Republican” who will be willing to confront injustices to citizens.

Roraback filed papers with the State Elections Enforcement Commission for an exploratory “test-the-waters” effort over the next month or so — to decide whether he will seek the office being vacated after the November election by Democrat Richard Blumenthal, who is running for the U.S. Senate.

Roraback said he loves and values his job as a state senator and will deliberate carefully before any decision to give it up and seek the higher office.

He said he doesn’t always agree with Blumenthal’s approach to the job — Roraback said he would be more pro-economic development in his dealings with corporations than Blumenthal has — but acknowledged that Blumenthal’s “work ethic” is one to emulate.  “He’s worked his tail off,” Roraback said, adding that his own string of about 7,600 consecutive legislative roll-coll votes attests to how hard he works. 

John Pavia, a corporate lawyer from Easton who is an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University, preceded Roraback in filing papers toward running for the GOP nomination for attorney general.

Roraback, 49, a lawyer since 1987, is part of a family law practice, Roraback and Roraback, that dates back generations in Litchfield County.

The three Democrats who have declared an interest in their party’s nomination for attorney general are: Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz; former state Senate majority leader George Jepsen of Stamford and state Rep. Cameron Staples of New Haven.

Bysiewicz filed a lawsuit last week in hopes of obtaining a judge’s ruling to clear away critics’ doubts that she has logged the 10 years of “active practice” in the law that a state statute requires to serve as attorney general in Connecticut.

Bysiewicz has been registered as a lawyer more than 23 years, but logged only six years of private or corporate law practice in Connecticut before assumiing her current post 11 years ago.

She says that although a person doesn’t need to be a lawyer to serve as secretary of the state, it should still count as the “active practice” of law — and thus qualify her under the 10-year requirement — because she directs a staff of lawyers and gives legal advice about elections and business registrations.

Bysiewicz, in her lawsuit, is suing her own office and the state Democratic Party, because both would play a rule in deciding whether she could run for attorney general. She wants a Superior Court judge to either declare her eligible under the 10-year requirement, or to declare that requirement unconstitutional.

Earlier this week, the state Republican Party hired a lawyer to intervene in that pending lawsuit and challenge Bysiewicz’s claim that she is qualified. No court hearing has yet been scheduled.

Roraback declined to state an opinion about whether Bysiewicz, shown in an early poll to be the Democratic front-runner, meets the 10-year requirement.

He did say, however, that he is disappointed that Bysiewicz, a leading advocate for public campaign financing for years, now has decided to renounce the state’s public financing system in her own campaign.

That public campaign financing system has been declared unconstitutional, but state officials are appealing the ruling. In the meantime, the system is still operating, and numerous candidates are running their campaigns within its fundraising and spending restrictions. Roraback said he would use the public financing system. He said that he thinks Bysiewicz, his undergraduate classmate at Yale, should have done that, too — as long as there was still “breath” in it.  

The state’s Republican Party has decided to hire a lawyer to challenge Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz in the lawsuit that she filed last week to seek a “declaratory ruling” that she is eligible to run for state attorney general.

At a meeting Tuesday night, the Republican State Central Committee committee authorized GOP state chairman Chris Healy to hire a prominent Hartford attorney, Eliot B. Gersten, to intervene in the lawsuit. He would be paid with the party’s funds, Healy said.

The move by the state Republicans increases the possibility that the question of Bysiewicz’s legal qualifications will be aired prominently in a court hearing. It also means that Bysiewicz may face the highly unusual prospect, as a statewide elected official, of having to testify under oath about how she has spent her time during her 11 years in office.

Asked Wednesday morning if he planned to call Bysiewicz as a witness in the case, Gersten answered this way: “I think all participants in this proceeding would anticipate providing testimony in support or in opposition of her factual claims.”

Bysiewicz claims that her 11 years as secretary of the state should count as the practice of law, but Healy has disputed that.

The question is critical to Bysiewicz’s hopes, because a state law says that to serve as attorney general, a person must have accumulated “10 years’ active practice” as a lawyer in Connecticut. Bysiewicz had only six years of private law practice in Connecticut, for a law firm and a corporate law department, before winning the 1998 election to the office she now holds. 

In Bysiewicz’s lawsuit, she is hoping to get a  Superior Court judge to make a “declaratory ruling” either that that she meets Connecticut’s legal requirements to serve as attorney general or that those legal requirements are unconstitutional. No hearing has yet been scheduled in that case, but her attorney has said he hopes the case can be decided in time for the Democratic Party’s nominating convention in May.

In her lawsuit, she served notice last week to potential “interested parties,” including Democratic rivals for the nomination and the Republican Party, of her action so that they can try to intervene as parties to the case. That is what the state GOP will now seek to do through Gersten.

Later Wednesday, the Bysiewicz camp said it would not oppose the GOP’s effort to intervene as a party in the case.

“We’ve definitely given our consent,” said Daniel J. Krisch, an attorney with the firm of well-known constitutional lawyer Wesley W. Horton. Bysiewicz says she is paying the law firm out of her own pocket to represent her. 

Healy said that the party will “take issue with” both of Bysiewicz’s claims: first, her contention that she qualifies to run for attorney general under the “10 years’ active practice” statute; and second, her allegation that the statute is unconstitutional.

“We are retaining Attorney Gersten to be sure that the integrity of our 2010 election is secure,” Healy said.

No hearing has yet been scheduled in the case that Bysiewicz filed last week, but her attorney has said he hopes the case can be decided in time for the Democratic Party’s nominating convention in May.

Last week, in announcing her lawsuit at a press conference, Bysiewicz acknowledged that there’s too much uncertainty about her qualifications in the minds of potential voters and convention delegates whose support she is seeking in her month-old candidacy for the 2010 Democratic nomination for attorney general. The current attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is giving up his office to run for the U.S. Senate in November.

“I’ve have been told by voters and delegates that they would like this question resolved absolutely. That’s why we’re here,” she said during last week’s press conference at the Hartford office of Wesley W. Horton, the prominent constitutional lawyer she has hired to handle her lawsuit. “This decision that I made was based on the fact that there is tremendous uncertainty, and I wanted to resolve it.”

“It is clear that I more than meet the requirements to serve as attorney general,” she said, “and this effort will confirm that once and for all.”

Soon after Bysiewicz declared her candidacy for attorney general in January, critics raised questions about her qualifications under the 10-year requirement. They said that although Bysiewicz has been registered as an attorney for more than 23 years, she spent only six years in Connecticut at a private law firm and as an in-house corporate lawyer, before becoming Secetary of the state in 1999. It is an office for which a person doesn’t need to be an attorney.

But Bysiewicz says that service as Secretary of the State counts as the “active practice” of law because she has directed a staff of eight or more staff lawyers over the years, and she has issued advice to municipal officials and others on laws involving elections and the registration of businesses.

When the author of a widely-read legal blog raised questions about her qualifications in January, Bysiewicz first dismissed the issue.  But then, in her official capacity as Secretary of the State, she raised questions about the constitutionality of the 10-year requirement and asked Blumenthal for a legal opinion.

He responded on Feb. 2, saying he believes the law is constitutional and that, while the statutory requirement is vague,” he believes it’s clear that the “active practice” of law means more than merely being registered as an attorney. Only a judge’s “declaratory ruling” will resolve the matter once and for all, he said.

On that day, Bysiewicz originally had said that she didn’t intend to seek such a ruling. She focused on parts of the opinion that supported her claim, and said: “It validates what I had been saying all along: that I am eligible to run for and serve as attorney general.” She added that her qualifications are a political issue, not a legal one, which voters can evaluate.

But doubts continued to be raised publicly in the two weeks since then.

Bysiewicz is suing in her individual capacity, and, as a legal mechanism, she has named three defendants: her own office, which would be subject to any court ruling in her favor saying she is qualified as a candidate; the state Democratic Party; and DiNardo herself.  The reason that the Democrats were named is that the party, and DiNardo, would have a role in potentially declaring her a legitimate candidate, said Horton and the party’s legal counsel, Kevin Reynolds.

DiNardo, the party’s chairwoman, didn’t mind being named a defendant in order to help resolve the issue of whom her party should nominate. She stood by Bysiewicz at her press conference last week and agreed with the wisdom of going to court. “Connecticut voters deserve clarity,” she said.

Two key legislators say a bill is needed to reverse a recent decision by the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board allowing the nine ethics board members and the 18-member staff of the Office of State Ethics to do volunteer work in political campaigns.

On Dec. 17, the ethics board voted 6-2 to approve a legal opinion that said, for the first time, that the ethics watchdogs now can provide unpaid, volunteer assistance even to candidates who come under their agency’s regulation. But that ruling will not last long if the two co-chairs of the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee get their way.

“The whole purpose of creating the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board was to have them separated, and to sit in a quasi-judicial capacity,” said state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, committee co-chairwoman. “To now have them involved in partisan politics completely erodes the trust that people will place in the ethics board and its rulings.”

Slossberg said that the committee will be drafting a bill to ban all campaign activities by board members and the ethics office’s staff.

“It looks like this law needs a pretty simple amendment,” said Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, the committee’s House co-chairman. “I agree with Gayle.”

The issue is the subject of the a Government Watch column in the Sunday Courant. The column can be read by clicking here. 

One of the two ethics board members who voted against approving the legal opinion Dec. 17, Dennis Riley of Norwich, told the Courant Friday “there shouldn’t be any political activity on the part of people who are assigned to enforce ethics regulations. It’s just a total watering down of strong ethics laws.”

Here’s the language of the opinion, as approved by the ethics board Dec. 17: “We conclude that [Office of State Ethics] employees and board members may, in their personal capacities, provide ‘uncompensated services … volunteering their time’ for federal, state or municipal campaigns — even if the candidate is subject to the … provisions” of the state ethics laws that the state watchdogs enforce.

The opinion was issued at the request of the Administrative and Residual Employees Union Local 4200, which represents about 10 staff members in the ethics office — lawyers, paralegals and others. The union’s first vice president, Mike Winkler, said he pursued the request after hearing from members inside the agency who were concerned with preserving their rights.

The ethics panel and the office staff at times investigate state government officials and employees for allegedly violating ethics laws, and sometimes they impose fines amounting to thousands of dollars. Slossberg said letting them engage in political campaigns could create an appearance of bias.

So how did the ethics board arrive at the conclusion that volunteer campaign work should be allowed?

It found that although state ethics laws specifically prohibit financial contributions to political campaigns by any “member or employee of the board or Office of State Ethics,” the definition of “contribution” in state election laws does not include volunteer campaign work. The election laws say: “‘Contribution’ does not mean … uncompensated services provided by individuals volunteering their time.”

And so when a staff lawyer at the ethics agency researched the law and prepared the legal opinion for board approval in December, the result was that campaign contributions remained banned but campaign volunteer work would be allowed.

Slossberg, the legislative committee chairwoman, said that when legislators set up the ethics board and staff office in 2005, they did not intend to leave open the possibility that volunteer campaign work would be permitted while contributions were banned. And so, she said, this unintended loophole must be closed.

Legislators might get an idea of how to do that by reading the Massachusetts law that governs the Bay State’s ethics commission. “No member or employee of the commission shall participate in or contribute to the political campaign of any candidate for public office,” the Massachusetts law says.

 

In a sharp reversal of position, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz initiated a lawsuit Thursday in hopes that a judge will rule that she meets Connecticut’s legal requirements to serve as attorney general – or that the judge will throw out those legal requirements as unconstitutional.

On Feb. 2, Bysiewicz had said she wouldn’t go to court to seek a judge’s “declaratory ruling” on the question of whether she meets the state’s century-old statutory requirement that its attorney general have accumulated 10 years in “active practice” as a lawyer in Connecticut.

But on Thursday, Bysiewicz acknowledged that there’s too much uncertainty in the minds of potential voters and convention delegates whose support she is seeking in her month-old candidacy for the 2010 Democratic nomination for attorney general. The current attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is giving up his office to run for the U.S. Senate in November.

“I’ve have been told by voters and delegates that they would like this question resolved absolutely. That’s why we’re here,” she said during a press conference at the Hartford office of Wesley W. Horton, the prominent constitutional lawyer she has hired to handle her lawsuit. “This decision that I made was based on the fact that there is tremendous uncertainty, and I wanted to resolve it.”

“It is clear that I more than meet the requirements to serve as attorney general,” she said, “and this effort will confirm that once and for all.”

But not everyone is so sure about that. Soon after Bysiewicz declared her candidacy for attorney general last month, critics raised questions about her qualifications under the 10-year requirement. They said that although Bysiewicz has been registered as an attorney for more than 23 years, she spent only six years in Connecticut at a private law firm and as an in-house corporate lawyer, before becoming Secetary of the state in 1999. It is an office for which a person doesn’t need to be an attorney.

But Bysiewicz has said in the past – and Horton said again Thursday – that service as Secretary of the State counts as the “active practice” of law because she has directed a staff of eight or more staff lawyers over the years, and she has issued advice to municipal officials and others on laws involving elections and the registration of businesses.

When the author of a widely-read legal blog raised questions about her qualifications in January, Bysiewicz first dismissed the issue.  But then, in her official capacity as Secretary of the State, she raised questions about the constitutionality of the 10-year requirement and asked Blumenthal for a legal opinion.

He responded on Feb. 2, saying he believes the law is constitutional and that, while the statutory requirement is vague,” he believes it’s clear that the “active practice” of law means more than merely being registered as an attorney. Only a judge’s “declaratory ruling” will resolve the matter once and for all, he said.

But on that day, Bysiewicz said that she didn’t intend to seek such a ruling. She focused on parts of the opinion that supported her claim, and said: “It validates what I had been saying all along: that I am eligible to run for and serve as attorney general.” She added that her qualifications are a political issue, not a legal one, which voters can evaluate.

But doubts continued to be raised publicly in the two weeks since then. For example, Democratic state chairwoman Nancy DiNardo said she was hearing enough from within the party that she thought it might be a good idea to seek a judge’s ruling now to clarify the matter, rather than have the issue be raised later this year by a Republican.

Bysiewicz is suing in her individual capacity, and, as a legal mechanism, has named three defendants: her own office, which would be subject to any court ruling in her favor saying she is qualified as a candidate; the state Democratic Party; and DiNardo herself.  The reason that the Democrats were named is that the party, and DiNardo, would have a role in potentially declaring her a legitimate candidate, said Horton and the party’s legal counsel, Kevin Reynolds.

DiNardo, the party’s chairwoman, didn’t mind being named a defendant in order to help resolve the issue of whom her party should nominate. She stood by Bysiewicz at her press conference and agreed with the wisdom of going to court. “Connecticut voters deserve clarity,” she said.

Horton said that he believes the case can be resolved by the party’s May nominating convention.  Other legal sources were not so sure, because others – such as the Republican Party – could intervene, and there may need to be hearings, evidence and arguments as to whether the activities of Bysiewicz as Secretary of the State constitute the active practice of law.

In an intriguing turn, Blumenthal may end up opposing Bysiewicz’s lawsuit. He and his staff have traditionally represented the Secretary of the State’s office, and now that Bysiewicz has named it as a defendant, he said, “we will defend the constitutionality of the law.”

Here is the full statement that Blumenthal issued later Thursday:  “My office will carefully review this lawsuit when we receive it to determine the appropriate next step. As my office recently concluded in a formal legal opinion, the statutory requirement that the state attorney general have ‘at least 10 years’ active practice of law’ is constitutional — and we will defend the constitutionality of the law.”

He added: “Our legal opinion also concluded that ‘active practice of law’ requires more than simply maintaining a law license, but the exact definition is a factual question that must be decided on a case-by-case basis by a court, as today’s legal action apparently seeks.”

Bysiewicz’s two Democratic rivals for the attorney general nomination–former state Senate majority leader George Jepsenand Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven – welcomed the fact that she had finally come around to doing what they had been saying was necessary:  going to court to resolve the issue.

 Jepsen called her decision “a 180-degree flip-flop” from Feb. 2,  when she said it wasn’t a legal question but instead a political issue for the voters to sort out.  Jepsen said that even if the job of Secretary of the state is deemed by a judge to count as “active practice” of law, being a lawyer is only incidental to the main job, which is as the administrator of a state office. That, he said, emphasizes her “paper-thin real-world legal qualifications,” he said.

Jepsen said he has “enjoyed watching Susan dance over legal questions that have been placed in front of her.”

Staples gave DiNardo – not Bysiewicz, who had resisted the idea of going to court the credit – for “recognizing that the Democratic voters and the general public need to know whether Susan is qualified to hold the office of attorney general. I think this is an important step for the party to undertake. and [Byseiwicz] is clearly hearing from members of the party, as I am, that they have concerns about nominating someone who may not be qualified to serve. I am encouraged that she is taking this step to clear up those issues.”

Both Staples and Jepsen said they agree with Blumenthal’s analysis that the 10-year requirement in the statute is valid and constitutional.  In the lawsuit that was being served on defendants Thursday, Bysiewicz officially takes the opposite position – that the law is invalid because it violates the state constitution.

State Republican Party chairman Chris Healy issued a statement saying Bysiewicz “is correct in seeking a declaratory judgment and to pay for it herself, even though the evidence suggests she is not qualified to serve as Connecticut’s Attorney General.”

Horton said Thursday that any statute adopted by the legislature is superseded by the state Constitution — which has only a bare-bones provision that the attorney general be a voter 18 or older.

That provision got into the constitution via a 1980 amendment, eight decades after the legislature passed the statute requiring 10 years of “active practice.” Horton argued that the “active practice” statute — or any statute that the legislature might enact to go beyond the constitution’s minimal provision — isn’t valid. Only a constitutional amendment can alter it, he said.

Blumenthal rejected that idea in his Feb. 2 opinion, saying the constitutional provision was adopted in the context of existing eligibility requirements and did not cancel them.

For several minutes during Thursday’s press conference, Bysiewicz appeared to contradict her lawyer’s arguments as she answered reporters’ questions. She said that “I have no problem with the legislature putting requirements in,” but that, in her opinion, the 10-year “active practice” requirement conflicted with the constitution. She said legislators could make other changes by passing laws, though. “There are a lot of things they could then do,” she said, “if they wanted to further address it.”

Horton was asked to clarify matters, and he reiterated that in the suit, Bysiewicz is taking an absolute position that the legislature cannot alter or augment the constitutional provision by passing a law.

When reporters pressed Bysiewicz on the apparent contradiction, she said, “I think we’re jumping the gun.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel Malloy, the former mayor of Stamford, gathered Monday with public officials and party leaders from “east of the river” to announce their endorsement of his candidacy – on the the day before Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont is scheduled to officially announce his own candidacy for the party’s nomination for governor.

The Malloy announcement, at the Marco Polo Restaurant in East Hartford, drew a sharp response from the Lamont campaign – and by the end of the day operatives for both were exchanging verbal darts that seemed to raise the prospect of bitterness between the camps very early in the game.

The controversy began when Malloy – who has been campaigning since last year although he is still technically in the “exploratory” stage of his gubernatorial candidacy – joined dozens of supporters from towns including East Hartford, Manchester, South Windsor, Bolton and Glastonbury at the Marco Polo.

The list included Mayor Melody Currey of East Hartford, that town’s Democratic chairman, Bud Salemi, state Sen. Gary LeBeau, D-East Hartford, and state Rep. Tom Kehoe, D-Glastonbury. Malloy issued a statement saying he is “overwhelmed and energized” by their support.

In response, Lamont’s new campaign manager, Joe Abbey, issued a statement saying: “Ned is not a career politician and has never been the insiders’ choice for office. In this political climate, it’s clear voters want candidates who will challenge the status quo and shake up the system, and who won’t participate in the same old political deals motivated by selfish political ambition that they’ve seen become commonplace in both Washington and Hartford.”

 Abbey has been a longtime operative in Democratic campaigns around the country, and most recently managed the unsuccessful 2009 Virginia gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Creigh Deeds.  He arrived in Connecticut a couple of weeks ago. His statement continued: “As this campaign progresses voters who are concerned about their jobs and the future of Connecticut are going to see a stark contrast between the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for Governor.”

Malloy’s campaign consultant, Roy Occhiogrosso, fired back, saying some of the language in Abbey’s statement was immoderate. “Did he really use the term ‘selfish political ambition’?  Ironic,” Occhiogrosso said.  He added: “Why’s Ned overreacting like this?  It’s a little unsettling.  Is he seeing significant support moving toward Dan, and getting rattled by it?  There’s more to come.”

Asked about Ochiogrosso’s retort, Abbey said he had nothing to add to his original statement – although he did say: “I think the larger point I was trying to make was endorsements are fine, and we’ll get our share … [but] I would say Ned’s more of an ‘outsider’ candidate” who isn’t “part of the inside crowd.” Voters “are looking for a change,” Abbey said, adding, “I’m not criticizing Dan Malloy’s endorsers or anything like that.”

Ochiogrosso said that further comment by Abbey reminded him of Jackie Gleason’s classic character Ralph Kramden on “The Honeymooners”  television show. Occhiogrosso said that it sounded like Abbey was saying “homina homina homina” – which was what Ralph Kramden used to say when he was flustered.

Columnist Kevin Rennie had this to say in his “Daily Ructions” blog about Monday’s rhetorical exchange between the Malloy and Lamont camps. 

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.

Republican state legislative leaders announced proposals Wednesday aimed at relieving municipalities of expenses mandated by state legislation, and in doing so stepped up criticism of the Democrats’ recent appointment of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Municipal Opportunities and Regional Efficiencies.

The GOP minority leaders in the Senate and House — Sen. John McKinney of Fairfield and Rep. Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk — said that the MORE commission is too partisan because it’s made up of 45 Democratic lawmakers and no Republicans. They also called it a waste of time.

“Municipal mandate relief has been studied for years, and the last thing we need is another taxpayer-funded, blue-ribbon commission to restate the obvious,” McKinney said. “Cities and towns want state government to fund public education, help pave local roads” and honor agreements for “payments in lieu of taxes.”

He said that local administrators want “state government to get off their backs and allow them to make the policy decisions that best suit their individual circumstances. They need mandate relief now.”

The Republicans’ legislative proposals include a two-year moratorium on “new unfunded municipal mandates,” and a change in legislative rules to require a two-thirds vote for such mandates.

They also want a two-year postponement of recently legislated initiatives that they say will cost towns too much, such as the “Raise the Age” program under which 16- and 17-year-olds would be treated as juveniles in law enforcement.

“The solution to the fiscal problems facing our towns and cities is not more empty rhetoric and inaction from Hartford politicians.  It is leadership and action,” Cafero said. “We have heard from our local officials and they clearly need and deserve relief from the costly mandates weighing on their local budgets in this time of fiscal distress.”

Republicans issued a statement saying that at a meeting Tuesday, municipal officials from around the state had “expressed frustration about the procrastination and partisanship that has characterized the Democrat-led legislature’s failure to close the state budget deficit and provide relief to municipalities struggling to maintain local services.”

House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, said: “We are excited about the work of the MORE commission. Its work is far more extensive than mandate relief alone, and [it] is looking at efficiencies at all levels of government. We’ll take the recommendations of the Republicans, but we also want to hear from municipal leaders and others as the commission is currently doing.” 

Senate Democrats’ spokesman, Derek Slap, said: “In the past few weeks, Democrats have put forward ideas to grow jobs, give tax relief to small businesses, and help reduce the cost of government. We hope the GOP will step up to the plate as well, and heed the governor’s call for a more civil and substantive discussion on how to help families in this challenging time.”

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, now a Democratic candidate for state attorney general, has politically exploited her office’s database of citizens’ names assembled over the course of a decade at taxpayers’ expense — by having her 2010 election committee send unsolicited e-mails to thousands of people in the database in search of political support and campaign contributions.

Now Bysiewicz’s office has come under investigation by the state’s current attorney general, Richard Blumenthal. Two members of his staff are investigating a complaint by a Republican activist, who received unwanted Bysiewicz campaign e-mails and charged that she has misused “official state data” for political purposes.

Bysiewicz Saturday confirmed Blumenthal is investigating her office but denied that anything improper happened. Blumenthal could not be reached for comment.

You can read in depth about the situation by clicking on this link to the Sunday Courant Government Watch column. But here are some additional comments by Bysiewicz in explaining why she had her exploratory campaign committee file a Freedom of Information Act request Feb. 2, 2009,for “an electronic copy of the Secretary of the State’s current … database.”

Asked whose idea it was, she said, “I talked about it with my campaign and we decided to make the request.”

So it was her idea, then?

“And our campaign’s idea,” she said. “It wasn’t just me.  It was members of our campaign.”

She was asked how this is different from a controversial episode in the 2006 gubernatorial election campaign. In that episode, Republican Gov. N. Jodi Rell’s chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, had someone on her office staff copy onto a computer disk an official state list obtained from the state’s culture and tourism agency, containing the names and addresses leaders of scores of tourism and arts groups; Moody then handed it over to Rell’s campaign committee for fund-raising purposes.

Bysiewicz said submitting the formal FOI request last year made a big difference. “You have a paper trail for what was done. It is a public record, it’s open and transparent. … Without a request from the campaign, then there are questions about, well, is that information from tourism being requested for a state purpose or a non-state purpose? … It was our intent to be very open, to be extremely transparent.”

Bysiewicz’s office database goes back to 1999, her first year in office, and contains the names of 36,000 citizens (and nearly 9,900 e-mail addresses) who have asked her office for information or help, or otherwise had contact with it.

If you contact Bysiewicz’s office with a question, or serve on some citizen committee involved with public voting issues that she supervises, you get put into the database and start getting periodic e-mail newsletters from the secretary of the state’s office about current issues.

When Bysiewicz had her campaign obtain the database from the office a year ago, people in the database started getting a second e-mail newsletter — this one from her campaign committee, Friends of Susan 2010. Those newsletters contained campaign material to build up her candidacy — for governor, at the time, before she shifted her sights on the attorney general’s office in January. Some of those newsletters provided a way for people to donate to the campaign committee.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that, Bysiewicz said, because the database is a public record that anyone can request — even another candidate, although none has. And, she said, both the official and campaign e-mail newsletters contain an “opt-out” provision, meaning with a simple computer-click recipients can stop receiving them.

As the 2010 General Assembly session is ready to open Wednesday, the The Office of State Ethics has issued a new “State of Lobbying” report showing that lobbyists spent nearly $38.6 million in Connecticut during 2009.

Of that sum, with $32.2 million, or 83 percent of it, was invested in trying to influence the legislature, and the other $6.4 million went for lobbying of administrative agencies.

Among businesses and organizations, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association spent the most — $1.46 million — on lobbying, followed by Northeast Utilities at $954,645.

On the receiving end of payments for influencing legislation and government decisions, the lobbying firm Gaffney, Bennett & Associates, headed by Jay Malcynsky, was the clear leader at $4.5 million — followed by Sullivan & LeShane at $2.16 million and Robinson & Cole at $1.96 million.

The report, which includes charts and explanations of lobbying laws, also says that $24,285 was spent by lobbyists for the benefit of public officials.  

 

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday that the state law requiring 10 years’ “active practice” as a lawyer before running for attorney general is constitutional, and that it takes more than merely being licensed as a lawyer to be considered as actively practicing law.

The opinion, which can be read via this link, could have a significant impact — politically, if not legally — on the person who requested it: Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who declared her candidacy three weeks ago to replace her fellow Democrat, Blumenthal, in the November election. He is not seeking re-election as he runs for the U.S. Senate.

Blumenthal said the meaning of “active practice” is unclear, and unless the legislature passes a bill clarifying it, a court would have to decide if a candidate meets it “on a case-by-case basis” by evaluating his or her credentials.

Bysiewicz, however, said she would not seek such a “declaratory ruling.” Instead, she said that she is “very encouraged” by the opinion and will continue running. “It validates what I had been saying all along: that I am eligible to run for and serve as attorney general,” she said. She added that her qualifications are a political issue, not a legal one, which voters can evaluate.

Almost as soon as Bysiewicz entered the race, 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.

The exact definition of “active practice” is not clear in the law, and Blumenthal said in Tuesday’s opinion that this would have to be determined by a judge in a declaratory judgment “on a case-by-case basis.”  This would involve hearings, evidence and testimony about the credentials of an individual candidate.

Bysiewicz said she has no plans to embark on such a court proceeding, although she didn’t rule out the fact that some other candidate might go to court to raise the issue.

Blumenthal said although there is a “cloud of uncertainty” over the definition of “active practice,” the words had to be put there for a reason. “Had the General Assembly intended only that the Attorney General be a member of the Connecticut bar for ten years, regardless of whether he actually practiced law, it could have said so without using the words ‘active practice.’” he wrote. 

He said that in other states, “the phrase ‘active practice’ has been defined to require more than merely being a member of the bar.”

In Alaska, for example, applicants to become judges must be in the “active practice of law” for the previous eight years. Alaska’s definitions of that phrase include “being actually engaged in advising and representing clients in matters of law” and “rendering legal services to an agency, branch, or department of a civil government within the United States, or a state or territory…, in an elective, appointive or employed capacity.”

In Texas, Blumenthal said, “it means an attorney who ‘has engaged in the practice of law, which includes, but is not limited to, private practice, house counsel, public employment, or academic employment.’”

Bysiewicz focused on the parts of those definitions that mention lawyers who serve in the government, including in an elected capacity — and she said they vindicate her argument that being Secretary of the State meets the “active practice” requirement here.

State Republican Chairman Chris Healy said Bysiewicz is wrong to pursue her candidacy.

“This is the height of arrogance and hubris, asking for guidance from the Attorney General, not getting the answer you want but acting as though you did,” Healy said. “With no one from her Party to stand by her side and defend her, Susan Bysiewicz has opted to go it alone.”

She should seek a court ruling and pay the legal bills herself, he said.”Nothing seems to stand in the way of Susan Bysiewicz’s ambition – even if it means ignoring the law she is sworn to uphold,” Healy said. “She must pony up for her own legal work and stop billing the taxpayers.”

Bysiewicz asked two weeks ago for the opinion in her official capacity as Secretary of the State, acknowledging that the question was personally relevant to her.

One of the fundamental questions she asked was whether the 10-year “active practice” statute is constitutional; her supporters say the century-old status predated the state constitution by many decades, and the constitution just says you need to be an 18-year-old voter.  Others, however, say the legislature has the right to elaborate on the constitution as long any statute that is passed does not contradict it — which was essentially Blumenthal’s position Tuesday.

In the time since Bysiewicz requested the opinion, 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.

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 issue can only be resolved in state Superior Court after a request for either a declaratory judgment or injunction.

Blumenthal agreed, saying: “Determining the specific actions that could constitute active practice, and whetheer any particular candidate has satisfied them in a particular case, requires a highly fact-specific inquiry that is beyond the scope of this decision and would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis by a court.”

Another possible way of resolving the situation would be for the legislature to address the uncertainty by rewriting the statute to define “active practice,” he said.

Jepsen said Tuesday that the opinion means “hard choices” for Bysiewicz because, in his view, she raised legal doubts publicly that she should now resolve.  He has said in the past that the Democratic Party cannot afford to have a candidate whose qualifications could be challenged in court. 

Bysiewicz’s other rival for the Democratic nomination, state Rep. Cameron Staples of New Haven, had a similar view. “I think the voters need to know if she meets the qualifications,” Staples told Courant Capitol Bureau Chief Christopher P. Keating. “This issue will have to be clarified for everyone’s benefit.”

In the two weeks since Bysiewicz asked for the opinion, 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 had been unwilling to talk to the Courant about the issue of her fees for more than a week, since the issue arose. She had her campaign spokeswoman, Tanya Meck respond, and she simply called it a mistake that Bysiewicz has rectified.

On Tuesday, the first time Bysiewicz talked about the issue for herself, she would not answer questions such as how she could have filled out the forms incorrectly three times, how much attention she gives to such details, or whether she leaves the task to others. “I don’t have anything to add” on the subject, she said. “I made a mistake, and as soon as it came to my attention I took steps to correct it.”

Healy, the Republican chairman, criticized Bysiewicz on that issue.

He said: “Over the last few weeks, Bysiewicz has given conflicting and erroneous accounts of her legal career, claiming that her tenure as a Constitutional officer should count for her performance of legal work. However, it was disclosed that she did file three successful forms claiming she was not engaged in ‘active legal work,’ and in one year, took a partial exemption from paying the occupational tax.”
 
“You can’t say on a sworn statement that you aren’t a practicing attorney, only to later say it was a mistake because you need the time to qualify for an important elected position,” said Healy. “The law is clear, but Susan Bysiewicz’s thinking is not. She should pack it in and look for a real job in the private sector and come back once she is qualified.”

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.

Democratic legislative leaders rolled out the specifics of their student-athlete concussion bill at a Legislative Office Building press conference this week — bringing in experts to speak, and handing out information sheets intended to show that head injuries are a growing problem that affect both boys and girls more than most people realize.

The advocates of a bill to protect youths said that although brain concussions to high school football players attract the greatest attention, girls soccer players are the next most likely to sustain such brain injuries among student athletes below the college level.

High school student athletes sustain at least 100,000 concussions a year in the United States — the majority of them in football, followed by girls soccer, boys soccer, girls basketball and wrestling, according to information compiled by the bill’s sponsors, state Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven and Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, co-chairman of the legislature’s education committee.

They supplied no detailed sport-by-sport breakdown on the numbers of concussions but said the problem is serious enough that Connecticut should become the third state — after Oregon and Washington — to adopt what they are calling their “When in doubt, sit it out” bill.

The legislation would:

•Prohibit students from participating in a game or practice on the same day they exhibit signs of a concussion or are diagnosed with one.

•Require athletes with suspected concussions to receive medical clearance before returning.

•Require coaches to be trained in recognizing concussion symptoms and seeking proper treatment.

“Concussions, in high school athletes, are a serious and dangerous injury,” said Dr. Thomas Trojian, physician for the UConn women’s basketball team and one of several experts who spoke at a state Capitol press conference this week to support the proposal. It would apply to athletes in high school and lower grades.

“Many of these student athletes return to play the same day as their concussion,” Trojian said. “This inappropriate return to play puts their developing brains at risk for prolonged or permanent damage and even death. We can work together to help educate coaches, parents and student athletes of the dangers of head injuries, like concussions, and protect student athletes with this legislation.”

The lawmakers said they would hold a public hearing to consider whether their bill also should include athletes in non-school recreation leagues such as Pop Warner football.

Concussions, the lawmakers said, were the second-most common injury among high school athletes last year, behind ankle strains and sprains, according to a study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. They said the research also indicates concussions have increased by 25 percent among high school sports injuries in the past few years — although, again, they did not provide statistical details.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, currently a candidate for state attorney general, has 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 Bysiewicz’s effort this week to shed that political embarassment has 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 is mounting 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 state’s current attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who is not seeking re-election as he runs for U.S. Senate. He requires his 200 or so staff lawyers to pay their fees out of their own pockets.

The issue of Bysiewicz’s exemption filings has arisen at a sensitive time for her, because some critics and opponents have been questioning whether she has enough active experience as a lawyer to serve as attorney general.

The Courant disclosed last Friday that, in 2006, Bysiewicz had signed an official state exemption form that stated, “I do not engage in the practice of law as an occupation,” as well as, “I hereby certify that the information provided herein is true and correct.”

Her submittal of that form granted her a 50-percent exemption from the normal $110 fee that lawyers and judges must pay each year into the state judicial department-maintained Client Security Fund, which compensates people for losses due to lawyers’ misconduct or mistakes.

Bysiewicz has been unwilling to talk about the situation since it arose last Friday, and instead has had paid spokesmen answer questions from The Courant. Bysiewicz’s campaign spokeswoman, Tanya Meck, has said that it was a simple mistake. “Susan filled out the wrong form and sent it in. She made a mistake one year out of 10,” Meck said last Friday.

But, since then, newly surfaced judicial department records have been released to The Courant showing that Bysiewicz also signed the same exemption forms — which again stated “I do not engage in the practice of law as an occupation” — in 2007 and 2008. However, in those years, Bysiewicz’s office submitted the full fee of $110 in her behalf anyway, instead of the $55 submitted in 2006.

Bysiewicz addressed the issue of the newly surfaced forms in her letter Monday, saying, “I request that the incorrectly filed 2007 and 2008 exemption forms be disregarded, as full payment was made.”

Bysiewicz is seeking to put the issue to rest to avoid damage to a campaign that a new Quinnipiac University Poll indicates she has begun with a strong lead over her opponents in the race for the Democratic attorney general nomination.

Controversy erupted two weeks ago over whether Bysiewicz has enough active law experience. State statutes say that Connecticut’s attorney general must have “at least 10 years’ active practice at the bar of this state,” but a few critics have said that she 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.

She requested a legal opinion last week from Blumenthal, but he has not yet responded.

Taking the 50-percent exemption for 2006 didn’t save Bysiewicz any money personally – because her spokesmen say that she has always had state taxpayers foot the bill for the Client Security Fund fees for her and the others in her office. Some, including Blumenthal, do not think this is the way to handle the fees.

“We do not pay for our attorneys’ client security fund fees,” Blumenthal said last week. “We feel that taxpayers should not have that burden” for the lawyers’ individual fees, he said.

A potential Republican candidate for attorney general, state Rep. Themis Klarides of Derby, criticized Bysiewicz on that front, saying in an interview that Republican legislators are considering introducing legislation this year that would require government-employed lawyers to pay their own fees. “Taxpayer dollars should not be used” for individuals’ fees, said Klarides, a lawyer who says she is “evaluating” a potential run for attorney general.

Klarides also wondered why Bysiewicz, for the first time, decided to submit a personal check this week to make up for the $55 from 2006 to quiet the controversy – instead of continuing to have her office use taxpayer money.

“I would only say that if the secretary of the state truly believed that it was completely on the up-and-up to use taxpayer money, then there should be no reason she wouldn’t do it again this time – unless in the back of her mind she was thinking that it really wasn’t the right thing to do,” Klarides said. The fact that now she used a personal check “says a lot, right there,” Klarides said.

Bysiewicz again was unvailable for comment on Monday, But Meck called Klarides’ comments “nitpicking and overthinking.” Meck said that Bysieicz “felt strongly that this was her mistake, and [sent] the check” to rectify the situation.

Lawyer Robert Martino of Glastonbury, a volunteer adviser to Bysiewicz’s campaign, said the fact that she used a personal check this week doesn’t mean she has changed her policy, and he expects that her office would continue to pay the fees for the lawyers who work there.

“I don’t think there’s any significance at all” in the fact that she submitted a personal check, he said.”It was an error that she made and she fixed it. … I don’t think it’s a change in policy; I think it’s the quickest way” to fix the problem.

So far, Bysiewicz’s opponents for the Democratic attorney general’s nomination have been restrained in their comments.

One of them, former state Senate majority leader George Jepsen, Friday called Bysiewicz’s 2006 exemption “a big oops.” He said “a lawyer is supposed to read the document before they check the box and sign it.”

Both Jepsen and the other announced Democratic candidate, state Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven, have paid the full Client Security Fund fee every year since it began in 1999 – as has Klarides, judicial department records show.

Meanwhile Tuesday, as Courant Capitol Bureau Chief Christopher P. Keating reports, a former state Democratic Party chairman, John Droney, is adding his views to the controversy

As a close follower of politics for more than 25 years, Droney said the party needs to settle the issue of whether Bysiewicz has the necessary 10 years as an attorney. Droney said that if he was still the chairman, he would bring the issue in front of a Superior Court judge in order to get a clear and definitive ruling.

Numerous legal analysts say that any opinion by Blumenthal would not be binding, and the only way to settle the issue would be to seek a declaratory ruling in Superior Court from a judge – a procedure that would require a hearing, evidence and legal arguments.  Republicans have suggested they may eventually seek such a court ruling, but that avenue is also open to a Democrat.

“I wouldn’t waste my time with Blumenthal,” said Droney, a lawyer known for his outspoken comments. “It’s not binding on anybody.”

As an insider who has watched attorneys general going back to the days of Robert K. Killian in the late 1960s and 1970s, Droney said the 10-year requirement has “never” been an issue in the past.

Droney also doesn’t buy the argument from Bysiewicz that she is, in effect, running a public-interest law firm as secretary of the state. “Otherwise, [former Secretary of the State and non-lawyer] Julie Tashjian was practicing law without a license for a long time,” Droney said.

 

Democratic lawmakers are proposing a bill to help protect student-athletes from the effects of brain concussions. The tagline for the legislation is: “When in doubt, sit it out.”

State Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney of New Haven and Sen. Thomas Gaffey of Meriden will talk about the bill at a news conference Tuesday at 1 p.m. in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.  Joining them will be coaches, doctors, parents, and representatives from the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference.
 
If the bill passes, Connecticut would become the third state – along with Washington and Oregon – to adopt a “comprehensive law protecting student-athletes from the effects of concussions,” a spokesman for Senate Democrats said.

Details were not announced Monday, but sources said the bill would require student athletes who suffer a suspected concussion to wait at least a day to return to action. It also would say that coaches must receive training about concussions.

Patricia H. Mayfield of Waterbury, commissioner of the state Department of Labor, died at her home early Monday, shortly before she was slated to retire Feb. 1.

Mayfield, 65, had been on leave for weeks before she died, state officials said. Information on the cause of her death was not immediately available.

Mayfield was named as commissioner in 2006 by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and subsequently confirmed by the legislature, about three years after retiring from a 35-year career in the labor department. The governor has said that Deputy Commissioner Linda Agnew of West Hartford will serve as acting commissioner.

Funeral arrangements have not been released.

Mayfield served various employment and training programs at the labor department from 1968 to 2003, when she retired. Rell asked her to return as commissioner because of her experience and leadership in “workforce issues,” Mayfield’s official biography says.

She was active on numerous boards and commissions, including the Connecticut Commission on Aging, the City of Waterbury Human Rights Commission, the board of directors for the Waterbury Opportunities Industrialization Center, and the Board of Directors of New Opportunities, Inc., of which she was chairwoman.

She was a founding charter member of the Greater Waterbury Chapter of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc., and was an NAACP member. In 2006 she received the Sojourner Truth Award from the Waterbury Club of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs Inc. The award, named for an 18th century slave, is awarded to a woman who exemplifies outstanding community service and is an advocate for women.

In 2008, she was honored by Girls Inc. of Southwestern Connecticut with the Miriam N. Camp Woman of the Year Award. That same year, she also received the Leon H. Sullivan Award from the Opportunities Industrialization Center of New Britain Inc.

Her biography said that she followed “in the footsteps of her parents” with a commitment to public service and social welfare, and was “dedicated to addressing complex issues that affect the lives of so many in our state.” She and her husband, James, had two children and one grandchild.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz — shown in a new Quinnipiac University poll as the front-running candidate for attorney general — obtained a 50-percent exemption from a state lawyers’ fee in 2006 on the basis that she didn’t “engage in the practice of law as an occupation,” records show.

“I do not engage in the practice of law as an occupation,” says the official state form that Bysiewicz signed. The form also says: “I hereby certify that the information provided herein is true and correct.”

That exemption form, dated May 22, 2006, meant Bysiewicz paid only half of the normal $110 fee that lawyers and judges must pay each year into the state judicial department’s “Client Security Fund,” which compensates people for losses due to lawyers’ misconduct or mistakes.

But that small savings of $55 may have political significance. Although this was the only year out of 11 that she claimed the partial exemption — and her campaign spokeswoman said Friday that Bysiewicz will correct what she described as a mistake in filling out the wrong form in 2006 — it may undercut Bysiewicz’s argument that her 11 years in office should count as the “active practice” of law.

It is a key argument for Bysiewicz. State statutes require that Connecticut’s attorney general have “at least 10 years’ active practice at the bar of this state,” but a few critics have said that she does not meet that “active practice” requirement even though she has been registered as an attorney here for 23 years.

Before she 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. She says all 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.

She requested a legal opinion Wednesday from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, but he has not yet responded.

Taking the 50-percent exemption for 2006 didn’t save Bysiewicz any money personally, by the way – because she has state taxpayers foot the bill for her annual Client Security Fund fees, as well as those of more than a half-dozen staff lawyers in her office.

That contrasts with the policy of Blumenthal, whom she hopes to replace as attorney general. He is not seeking re-election as he runs for the U.S. Senate.

“We do not pay for our attorneys’ client security fund fees,” Blumenthal said Friday. His office employs about 200 lawyers. “We feel that taxpayers should not have that burden” for the lawyers’ individual fees, Blumenthal said.

The question of who pays Bysiewicz’s fees had been raised Thursday in Kevin Rennie’s Daily Ructions blog, in this entry, and Byswiecz’s office spokesman Av Harris told The Courant Friday that taxpayers’ money has been used to pay the fees for years.

Bysiewicz would not talk to a Courant reporter about any of this Friday. Instead, her campaign spokeswoman, Tanya Meck, said that Bysiewicz had made an error and would be sending $55 to the judicial department to pay the full fee. Bysiewicz has had her office paid the full fee for her in all years except 2006, Meck said.

Meck could not explain how Bysiewicz could have errantly signed the wrong form. At first, Meck said Bysiewicz had “checked the wrong box” on the form. But that wasn’t true: The form that Bysiewicz filled out serves no other purpose than to claim an exemption; it doesn’t have one box to check for full payment and another box for the exemption. Lawyers submit a different document – a coupon – with full payment.

When Meck was informed of this, she said her comment about checking the “wrong box” had been her words, not Bysiewicz’s. Asked if Bysiewicz would call to explain the situation for herself, Meck said, “I don’t know that that would be helpful” because Bysiewicz doesn’t have a specific recollection of what happened. “Susan filled out the wrong form and sent it in. She made a mistake one year out of 10,” Meck said, “and her office subsequently sent in $55.”

The annual lawyers’ fee for the Client Security Fund was instituted in 1999 at $75, and increased to the present $110 in 2005. Bysiewicz paid $75 a year from 1999 to 2005, then $55 in 2006, and $110 each subsequent year through 2009, a judicial department spokeswoman said the fund’s records show.

The other candidates to formally announce runs for the Democratic attorney general nomination — former state Senate majority leader George Jepsen and current state Rep. Cameron Staples — both have paid the full fee every year since 1999, the spokeswoman said.

The judicial department’s written rules say that the partial exemption is granted to lawyers who certify that they “do not engage in the practice of law as an occupation” and “do not expect to earn more than $450 in legal fees or other compensation for services involving the practice of law during the calendar year.”

Jepsen Friday called Bysiewicz’s 2006 exemption “a big oops.” He said “a lawyer is supposed to read the document before they check the box and sign it.”