Blumenthal Kicks Bysiewicz Question To The Courts
by Christine Stuart | Feb 2, 2010 3:50pm
(5) Comments | Commenting has expired
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal concluded that questions about Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s qualifications for attorney general need to be determined by the courts or the legislature.
“This office will not have the last word, it must be from the court,” Blumenthal said Tuesday at a press conference releasing the opinion.
While more questions than answers were left by the 14-page opinion, Blumenthal concluded the statute which says an attorney general must have 10 years of “active practice,” is “constitutional.”
“It is constitutional because the framers of the 1970 amendment really incorporated the qualifications of that statute and assumed they would continue to apply because the attorney general was in fact an attorney,” Blumenthal said Tuesday.
As far as determining specifically if Bysiewicz is qualified Blumenthal deferred to the courts or the legislature should it wish to weigh in on the issue and clarify the “active practice” statute.
“I believe very strongly my office can’t answer the question of what is active practice for any candidate,” Blumenthal said. But he did say that “active practice means something more than being an attorney and a member of the bar.”
Which means either Bysiewicz can ask a court as the Secretary of State for an opinion or she can ask as a candidate. The court would then have to comb through her background and determine if her years as Secretary of State counted toward the active practice provision.
But Bysiewicz said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon that she thinks Blumenthal’s opinion validates her position. She said she won’t ask the courts for an opinion because “this supports what I’ve been saying all along.”
“I’m moving forward,” Bysiewicz said.
According to her accounting she’s been practicing law for the past 20 years and has engaged in a wide-variety of legal activities which constitute active practice as defined in Blumenthal’s opinion. Specifically Bysiewicz pointed to page 13 of the 14-page decision, which talks about how Alabama, Texas and Alaska have interpreted “active practice.”
At this point “this is a political question for the voters to decide,” Bysiewicz said.
Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy said Bysiewicz should have sought the opinion as a candidate and should have used her campaign funds to hire an attorney to ask the court for a declaratory ruling.
“Any competent lawyer will look at the law and say she’s not qualified,” Healy said. “She’s struggling mightily to apply for a job she’s not qualified for.”
If Bysiewicz doesn’t ask the courts for an opinion then Healy said he will.
As far as Blumenthal’s opinion is concerned, “he punted,” Healy said.
One of Bysiewicz’s Democratic opponents sent out a statement urging Bysiewicz to seek the courts help in determining her qualifications.
“The people of Connecticut deserve clarification of Susan’s legal status as a candidate for Attorney General,” George Jepsen said. “It falls on her to take appropriate steps to resolve the question of her qualifications.”
Jepsen has said he wouldn’t seek to challenge Bysiewicz’s qualifications in court, but Healy said he has no trouble bringing the matter to a court. Rep. Cameron Staples of New Haven is the other Democrat running for attorney general. On the Republican side John Pavia III of Easton has filed papers to run for the office, while Rep. Art O’Neill of Southbury is still considering a run for the Republican nomination.
Click here to read Blumenthal’s 14-page opinion. And here for Jeff Cohen’s WNPR report.
(5) Comments
posted by: Bob Solomon | February 2, 2010 6:15pm
Susan Bysiewicz claimed the statute was unconsititutional. The Attorney General disagreed. She also said that her Secretary of State tenure qualified as the active practice of law. The Attorney General took no position. Susan Bysiewicz says the opinion validates her position. That’s a pretty bizarre conclusion. Is that the kind of reasoning she would bring to the AG’s office? It’s self-serving, but not rational.
posted by: Walt | February 2, 2010 6:34pm
Bysiewisc says she will not ask the Courts for a decision and keeps to herself the right to decide, her qualifications.
Sort of sneaky , dont you think?
Someone should petition the right Court to decide her qualifications, if she continues her claim.
posted by: Dempsey Dem | February 2, 2010 6:47pm
First, a can of worms… How have past AG’s stacked up as to ‘active’ practice qualifications?
As to ‘The Letter’ Susan cites the end section that cites Alaska (Would’nt it be a hoot if we have to hang our hat on Alaska?)and Alabama, which have extremely wide definitions of “active”. Both include Gov. service or advising of such as qualifying as ‘active practice’.
Bysiewicz sat as head of two seperate banks of Attorneys, one the Election Division, and the second the Commercial division. As a non-attorney this would seem to me to be somewhat the same as the head of a law firm or it’s division sitting in on decisions and offerring opinions on an ‘active’ basis.
posted by: Bob Solomon | February 2, 2010 7:31pm
The statute says active practice of law. It’s not enough that some other job is “somewhat the same” as practicing law. If a job or activity can be done by a non-attorney, it is not practicing law. The statute does not allow for the substitution of life experiences. It’s really not that complex. It may be that Susan Bysiewicz practiced law in some way, like pro bono representation, but it is hard to see how giving advice as the Secretary of the State qualifies. If it does, the many previous Secretaries of the State who were not lawyers were practicing law without a license.
posted by: ctwatcher | February 3, 2010 2:15am
Question was posed: Susan Bysiewicz says the opinion validates her position. That’s a pretty bizarre conclusion. Is that the kind of reasoning she would bring to the AG’s office? It’s self-serving, but not rational.
Answer: Yes, that is what we can expect. If you go back and look for the SOTS characterization of how the election audits have gone “perfectly,” and then look up the CT Audit Coalition reports on the same election audits identifying many problems and discrepancies and low confidence level they have in audit results, you will see the same pattern of forging ahead and calling red green.
If CT citizens paid attention to how SOTS does her job(and they rarely do here or anywhere), this aspect of the SOTS M.O. would not be coming as a surprise.
