Legal News

A Dustup in Connecticut: Is AG Candidate Qualifed to Run?

By Ashby Jones

In many ways, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz seems perfectly well-equipped to replace Richard Blumenthal as the Nutmeg State’s attorney general. She grew up in Connecticut, went to Yale and Duke Law and practiced in both New York and Hartford. She’s even penned a book — one about Ella Grasso, a pioneering Connecticut politician. (Click here for a nice recent bio from the Yale Daily News.)

But whether Bysiewicz is technically qualified to serve is another matter entirely. On Wednesday, Ryan McKeen, a lawyer and the author of a blog about law and politics in Connecticut called “A Connecticut Law Blog” pointed out in this post” that Connecticut has on its books a little law that might provide a bit of a headache to Bysiewicz. Bysiewicz announced her candidacy earlier on Wednesday.

Connecticut General Statute 3-124 states that: The Attorney General shall be an elector of this state and an attorney at law of at least ten years' active practice at the bar of this state.”

Writes McKeen:

VoteSmart.org lists Ms. Bysiewicz's professional experience as follows:

Attorney, Aetna Insurance Company, 1992-1994
Attorney, Robinson and Cole, 1988-1992
Attorney, White and Case Law Firm

. . . Assuming that Ms. Bysiewicz's time at White and Case counts as the active practice of law at the Connecticut bar that would mean she had accrued 8 years active practice by the time she left Aetna in 1994. If not, then she would have had 6 years in active practice.

On Thursday, the Hartford Courant picked up on the action.

According to the Courant, Bysiewicz’s office responded that she clearly meets the requirement in state law that “the Attorney General shall be an elector of this state and an attorney at law of at least ten years’ active practice at the bar of this state.” By their counting, her service as Secretary of the State suffices as “active practice.”

One potential challenger to Bysiewicz, Democratic State Rep. Cameron Staples, jumped on the issue late Thursday and, according to the Courant, said that Bysiewicz clearly has a problem; that serving as the Secretary of the State is, in essence, running a public-interest law firm through the supervision of lawyers in the office.

“That’s like saying the CEO of a corporation, who has a law degree, practices law just because there’s a law department in the corporation,” Staples said. “The Secretary of the State’s office, with all due respect, is not a law office. She is the CEO of the office. She’s not the lawyer in charge of the lawyers.”

In the meantime, McKeen has taken to defending his original post and given Bysiewicz an opportunity to respond on his blog.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).