by Ryan McKeen
Well I won’t back down
No I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down
No I’ll stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin me down
gonna stand my ground
… and I won’t back down ~ Tom Petty
It’s a Shakespearean tragedy.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Susan Bysiewicz recently. In case you’re just tuning in, I’m the “internet blogger” (Jon Lender’s words, not mine) that started the debate when I asked whether or not she was qualified.
At the time I asked the question, I had no idea what her answer would be. I’m confident that my question to her was fair.
I had no idea that this story would become the saga that it has. I figured there was a simple answer like she had experience that wasn’t listed on her official online resume.
Over the years, Ms. Bysiewicz has supported several local candidates whom I’ve also supported. Two years ago, she took time out of her schedule to speak to a group of about 15 people in a small barn near my house on a humid summer night to help a local candidate for state representative. As a democrat, I am grateful for her service to the state and to her party.
I’m also grateful that she took the time to respond to my question.
What I’m having trouble with is what has happened over the course of the past 4 months.
For starters, it’s my position that the statute is constitutional and requires 10 years of active litigation experience. That and $5 will get you a foot long sandwich at Subway. Having read over some of the deposition transcript it is clear that Ms. Bysiewicz does not have 10 years of litigation experience and is thus not legally qualified to serve as attorney general.
Legally, I think her best hope is that the statute is unconstitutional. I think it is constitutional. Of course, I’m not a Connecticut constitutional scholar and she’s got the one guy who is by her side.
Predicting how a court or courts will rule on this case is a fool’s errand. A court may very well find that she’s eligible to run. Anyone who tells you with certainty what the outcome of this case will be doesn’t know what he is talking about. There is enough uncertainty in this case to keep attorneys, judges, and law clerks busy for many hours.
That said, I think the statute is a shining example of one of the many paternalistic statutes on our books. If I had my way, the statute and its ilk, would be repealed. At it’s core, the statute assumes (to the degree that a statute can assume anything) that you are stupid.
There’s nothing wrong with letting the voters of Connecticut decide whether or not they think Ms. Bysiewicz is qualified to be the state’s top lawyer. A reasonable voter may very well conclude that her experience managing a large state agency is more important than her experience as an attorney.
But the problem is that we have this law on our books. Since the law is on our books it must be followed.
What I’ve had trouble understanding is why Ms. Bysiewicz subjected herself to the deposition. She must feel really strongly that she is qualified to be attorney general and that she really wants to be attorney general.
There were numerous ways she could have avoided being deposed. For example, in January she could have decided not to run for Attorney General even after announcing her intentions to run. Perhaps she could have announced that she was seeking re-election as Secretary of State. Her critics would have pounced. But all would have been long forgotten come November.
Depositions are never fun for the person being deposed. The public nature of her deposition suggests to me that Colin McEnroe is right when he says that “she has the internal wiring of a Terminator“. It took nerves of steel for her to sit in that chair and be deposed. When the video is released today, I expect that we’ll see clips that are not favorable to Ms. Bysiewicz. In fairness to her, what she did was very difficult.
The internal wiring of the Terminator might explain why she went all in on this case instead of simply challenging the constitutionality of the statute and/or asking for a court to opine on the meaning of “active practice at the bar”.
Such a route would have been the path of least resistance. But that’s not the path she chose.
The other thing that was made clear to me in the deposition transcript is that she is used to setting high goals and achieving them. This is both good and bad. What jumped off the page at me is that if she put her mind to running Badwater (a 135 mile ultra marathon through Death Valley) I’d bet on her finishing.
The flipside is that this very same determination seemingly caused her to give ludicrous answers to Attorney Gersten’s questions. It’s as if she believed if she said it, it would be true. There’s no shame in admitting that when a person who is licensed to practice law becomes a kindergarten teacher that he or she is not actively practicing law while teaching 5 year olds.
I have nothing against Susan Bysiewicz. Over the past several weeks, I’ve tried to understand how things got to where they are today.
I stood at the finish line of the Marine Corps marathon a few years ago. The marathon ends near the Iwo Jima memorial. The last half mile or so are up a steep hill.
It was very warm the day I was watching the race. What I’ll never forget is seeing a man collapse less than 100 feet from the finish line. He could see the end in sight when he fell.
Runners continued to race by him as he was lying face down on the pavement.
Then he started to crawl. He put one arm out and then the other. But his efforts were futile. He was too weak to move.
Marines raced to help him. He muttered something to the Marines. They told him they were going to take him off the course and to the hospital. The man was in great physical distress.
What happened next amazed me. Several Marines tried to pick the man up and place him on a stretcher. With whatever energy this man had left he resisted the Marines. I stood and watched as a skinny man in his mid fifties who had just run 26.15 miles and was too weak to crawl another foot tried to fight off the Marines.
He was determined to finish. But he never did. At least not that day. The Marines removed him from the course just short of the finish line and took him to the hospital.
Watching all that’s happened over the past several months, I’ve come to realize that Ms. Bysiewicz has a lot in common with the marathoner trying to fight off the Marines.
I don’t know why the marathoner collapsed. It could have been a number of reasons. Most likely he was pushing things too hard during the race given the hot conditions. But I think it’s a same guess that the very same grit that got him so close to the finish line was what likely caused him to ultimately come up short.
Like the marathoner fighting the Marines, the world seems to be screaming for her to stop but she won’t let go.
Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
(and I won’t back down…)
hey I will stand my ground
and I won’t back down ~ Tom Petty
Some may call the fight foolish. Some may call it admirable. I call it Shakespearean.