Filling Big Shoes
Possible successors to Blumenthal step forward
By THOMAS B. SCHEFFEY
For a couple dozen Connecticut lawyers, the early morning news on Jan. 6 that state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal would run for Christopher Dodd’s U.S. Senate seat struck like a lightning bolt.
For the first time in two decades, the greatest public “bully pulpit” for any Connecticut lawyer is suddenly and unexpectedly up for grabs.
And almost immediately, a list of potential candidates from both parties began to emerge. On the Democratic side, George Jepsen, the former Democratic state chairman, state senator from Stamford and co-chair of the legislative Judiciary Committee, was quick to announce his interest in the race.
Others mentioned as potential Democratic hopefuls included Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura, state Sen. Paul Doyle of Wethersfield, Sen. Jonathan Harris of West Hartford, and Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, a current co-chair of the Judiciary Committee. His Senate counterpart, Andrew McDonald of Stamford, is also a potential contender for the constitutional office. Coincidentally, McDonald got the same Senate seat and is the same age as Blumenthal when he won in 1990.
“The whole landscape has shifted since I got up this morning – it’s quite an amazing day,” said Doyle, 47, a conservative Democrat who has served for 14 years on Judiciary.
“The AG’s position is different from the legislature. When you’re the AG, you’re no longer a policymaker – you’re the government’s and the people’s lawyer.”
Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, a co-chair of the Government and Elections Committee, has long been exploring a run for secretary of the state, and would certainly not rule out the AG race. Blumenthal, he said, has developed the AG’s office into “the biggest public interest law firm in the state.”
Like Spallone, West Hartford Sen. John Harris has previously expressed interest in the secretary of the state job. But he, too, isn’t ruling out a run for AG, if the opportunity presents itself.
Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, is also mentioned prominently in news reports as a potential AG contender. She is co-chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, and she could not be reached immediately for comment.
Many Republicans
During the 20 years Blumenthal held the AG’s office, his Republican challengers faced an insurmountable level of name recognition and voter approval. He was challenged in 1994 by Orange resident Richard Arnold, who became a Superior Court judge two years later. New London lawyer Santa Mendoza ran against him in 1998, and was defeated by a wide margin. In an interview, Mendoza said she didn’t want to rule herself out of consideration. She expressed admiration for Blumenthal’s civility, but not his efforts to rein in the perceived excesses of businesses and utilities in Connecticut and across the country. “Unfortunately, Mr. Blumenthal is an ideologue who really questions the capitalist system at the core,” Mendoza said.
Avon environmental lawyer Martha Dean, who lost by a lopsided margin to Blumenthal in 2002, is still clearly interested in the job, and noted that she won about 50,000 more votes than Blumenthal’s other challengers. Shortly before her run, Dean was a columnist for the Law Tribune, as was Mendoza.
Two prominent Republican lawmakers who had been hailed as potential AG candidates have demurred: House Republican Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. of Norwalk, who recently decided against running for governor, and Rep. John McKinney, R-Fairfield.
Many other Republicans are interested. Rep. Arthur O’Neill, a solo attorney from Southbury who sits on the Judiciary Committee, says he is mulling his options. So is another senior Republican on the committee, Sen. John Kissell, R-Enfield.
Shipman & Goodwin partner Ross Garber, who was the top legal advisor for the governor’s office during the Rowland impeachment crisis, is also being urged to run by admirers, but remains noncommittal.
One of the largest question marks on the Republican side has been former U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor, now a partner with Bracewell & Giuliani in Hartford. O’Connor served in the George W. Bush Justice Department in Washington as the number three man in the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.
O’Connor spoke with the Law Tribune last week about the AG’s post, and seemed to rule out a run in 2010. “I would love to do that job,” he said. “I would love to be governor. Hopefully there will come a time when that option is there. And I recognize that the opportunity may never come again, but if so, I’m at peace with that.”
O’Connor added: “I recognize the timing might be just right for a run, but I’ve done my stint in public service. I would like to return at a later time, but now is not the time.”
Question Of Style
Historically, the attorney general’s role has been a modest one, and in the early 20th century, it was a part-time job for a Harford lawyer. But over time, it has grown as the size of government increased, because the chief duty of the AG has been to defend government agencies in court.
The Blumenthal style, with its high public profile and Robin Hood attacks on utilities, banks and corporations, has its roots in the years when now-U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman was Connecticut’s attorney general.
John King, a veteran lawyer-lobbyist with Hartford’s Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, explained it this way: “Joe Lieberman reshaped the office by being an activist attorney general. Prior attorneys general were not independent advocates, and I think Joe Lieberman assumed that role, and it was enhanced by Attorney General Blumenthal.”
When he took office, Blumenthal, in a 1991 interview with Law Tribune writer Joe Calve, explained that state AGs may have to “fill the gap that’s been left by federal inaction.”
“It’s the second most important job in state government, and in some ways, for a lawyer, even more challenging and satisfying than being governor,” Blumenthal said at the time. “I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity.”
More than most, Blumenthal had the background to understand each of the three branches of government and also to develop insight into the media.
In his meteoric rise to the AG’s office, Blumenthal had been a state senator, had clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, and had served as a reporter for The Washington Post, at one point directly working with publisher Katherine Graham.
He had been a U.S. Attorney, prosecuting corrupt town officials. He even investigated press leaks by Justice Department employees in a probe of the 1980’s ABSCAM bribery scandal that resulted in the convictions of six members of Congress.
As attorney general, few would say Blumenthal limited himself to simply enforcing civil laws as needed.
As a press office issued releases at a furious pace, Blumenthal sought dragons to slay – from utility companies he felt were overcharging customers to charities he thought were scamming donors. Most notably, he helped bring about, with attorneys general from other states, the $200 billion-plus national settlement with Big Tobacco in 1998.
“We organized attorneys general to stand strong against misleading lotteries, off-label drugs [and] deceptive food advertisements,” Blumenthal said in an interview.
Said King, the lawyer-lobbyist: “He’s been a spokesperson for the consumer, and doesn’t wait for someone to come knocking at his door for assistance.”
‘Meritless Cases’
In the next race for the job, it’s likely that Democrats will be attempting to assure voters that Blumenthal’s shoes can be filled.
But Republican challengers are likely to attack the activist style of the 200-plus lawyer office. Dean, the Avon lawyer who challenged Blumenthal in 2002, has specific changes she’d make if she got the chance.
She would end the “anti-business stance” of the office and work to cut “tens of thousands of cases per year brought by the AG by identifying weak and meritless cases and advising state agencies to settle or withdraw them.”
Dean would also cut the amount spent on private law firms, cutting down the size and scope of the office’s sway. She added: “Connecticut needs a tough, experienced, no-nonsense AG who will enforce the law without bringing frivolous, politicized lawsuits.”
Aaron Bayer, an appellate lawyer at the Hartford office of Wiggin & Dana, was a top deputy under Blumenthal throughout the 1990s. He said the reason the attorney general’s office has grown so large and powerful is due to the growth of state government. Much of the work performed by scores of assistant attorneys general is not an area of partisan dispute, Bayer said. The largest segment of the office is devoted to a pet concern of conservatives – collecting child support from parents evading their responsibilities, Bayer noted.
“I think that if the goal is to shrink the AG’s office, just not doing the work doesn’t make sense. And the idea of dramatically cutting back on things that help people doesn’t seem like a very effective idea, either,” said Bayer.
Typical of his media-friendly approach, Blumenthal returned a call for comment just before the Law Tribune’s deadline on Friday. He was asked what he is most proud of regarding the office he is leaving.
“The overarching accomplishment,” he said, “is that I have made it a fighter for ordinary people and the public interest – a very activist and effective advocate against illegal misconduct that harms families and citizens.”•
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