U.S. Treasury Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Luke Bronin will replace Andrew McDonald as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s chief legal counsel, the governor announced Tuesday.
Last month Malloy nominated McDonald to the state Supreme Court. Bronin’s appointment is contingent upon the legislature’s approval of McDonald’s confirmination.
Bronin worked with Malloy on his first unsuccessful campaign for the governor’s office. Malloy said it’s important that he and his general counsel have a close working relationship.
“This is a very personal position but one that requires great intelligence and great expertise and great fluency, and all of those are possessed by this guy,” Malloy said. “Some of you joke that I work hard. This guy puts me to shame on an output level.”
Bronin will come to the job with a different skill set than McDonald, who served as a lawmaker for several terms.
At the Treasury Department, Bronin worked as the deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes. Malloy said Bronin also has worked as in an international fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.
As a member of the Navy Reserve, Bronin served seven months in Afghanistan where he was assigned to an anti-corruption task force.
Malloy said Bronin’s diverse work background gives him a unique perspective.
“It was important that I have a person that, A, is capable of providing that different perspective, B, that I’m confident in their ability to communicate that different perspective to me,” he said.
Bronin, who is from Connecticut, said he was happy to be moving back to his home state where his wife has continued to work as a professor at the University of Connecticut Law School. He said he also was pleased be joining the governor’s administration, which he said tackles problems “head-on.”
As Malloy’s general counsel, Bronin will earn $160,000 a year, the same salary as McDonald. He is 33 years old and received his law degree from Yale Law School. He also has studied law and economic and social history at the University of Oxford.