The Courant’s Daniela Altimari is reporting that the Judiciary Committee is going to take up a bill that would alter the requirements to serve as attorney general. Last year, in Bysiewicz v. DiNardo the Connecticut Supreme Court found that a candidate for attorney general must have 10 years of practice with at least some of it being litigation and perhaps trial practice.
The Court left open the question of how much experience was necessary and just concluded that Bysiewicz who admitted to having no litigation experience did not meet the statutory requirements. Thus, the Court provided little guidance to anyone seeking the office in the future just how much experience one needed to qualify.
This inevitably leads to wasteful and stupid litigation. See Dean v. Jepsen.
Last year, I argued on this blog prior to the Court’s ruling in Bysiewicz v. DiNardo that the AG statute required litigation experience. I was told that I was nuts. I once made the argument to a room full of lawyers and again was told I was nuts. Unfortunately for Bysiewicz, it turns out, that another person who was nuts and read the statute as I did was Eliot Gersten who represented the Republican Party in Bysiewicz v. DiNardo.
The opinions that I offered on this blog last year were for the most part my legal opinions on the subject.
Personally, I thought the entire episode was really stupid. Politically, I believe that people get the government that they deserve. If the people of Connecticut want to elect a person who has never been to court as attorney general – so be it.
I think the Bysiewicz opinion offended a lot of lawyers. Their egos wouldn’t allow them to believe that because they practice corporate transactional work that they could not serve as Attorney General. While some guy with his face on a bus may be qualified to serve. Thus we’re seeing a proposal to create a no questions law that says if you’re licensed for 10 years you’re golden. No pesky depositions necessary.
The 10 year requirement would still be amongst the most stringent in the Country. Most states simply require a law license and some no license at all.
The problem with the requirements now and the proposed legislation is that it’s terribly paternalistic. The proposed legislation just redraws the same paternalistic line.
I say abolish the requirements entirely. Let any elector run. Let the people have the ultimate choice as to who they want to serve.
The problem with that is I’m not sure it’s possible. The question I’m about to ask, I don’t know the answer to: Can the legislature amend the statute? Ironically, this question may best be answered by Bysiewicz’s lawyer and Connecticut constitutional scholar Wes Horton. The Court in Bysiewicz touched on some of the constitutional issues pertaining to the requirements. At least in my mind, and this blog is worth what you pay for it, it just may turn out to be that Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 3-124 as explained in Bysiewicz is in a weird way part of the Connecticut Constitution. Thus amending the requirement may require an amendment to the Constitution.
The paragraph that I just wrote above may in fact be laughable to someone with far more knowledge about such things than I but it’s a question I’ve had since reading the opinion last fall. I’m interested to see if the issue is raised before the Judiciary Committee next week.