| Susan Bysiewicz | |
|---|---|
| Susan Bysiewicz in October 2008 | |
| 72nd Secretary of the State of Connecticut | |
| In office January 3, 1999 – January 3, 2011 |
|
| Preceded by | Miles S. Rapoport |
| Succeeded by | Denise Merrill |
| Connecticut State Representative from the 100th District | |
| In office 1992–1998 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | David Donaldson |
| Residence | Middletown, Connecticut |
| Alma mater | Yale College, Duke University Law School |
| Profession | Lawyer, public official |
| Religion | Catholic |
Susan Bysiewicz (born 1961) served as Secretary of the State of Connecticut from 1999 to 2011. She was briefly a candidate for Governor of Connecticut in 2010, before dropping out to run for Connecticut Attorney General. She was disqualified from running for the office by the Connecticut Supreme Court and announced in 2011 that she was running for the U.S. Senate to replace the retiring Joe Lieberman.
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Bysiewicz was raised on a farm[1] in Middletown, Connecticut, and is a Catholic of Polish and Greek descent.[2][3] She graduated from Yale University and Duke University School of Law. While pursuing her law degree, she wrote Ella: A Biography of Governor Ella Grasso.[4] (Grasso is remembered in Connecticut both for pioneering women's roles in politics, and for serving in late stages of fatal cancer.) Bysiewicz practiced law in New York City, and then in Hartford.
She was elected state representative for the 100th Assembly District of Connecticut for three successive terms starting in 1992, representing until 1998 about 22,000 constituents living in parts of the towns of Middletown (64% of her constituents) and Middlefield (10%), and throughout the town of Durham (26%).[5]
In 1998, she sought the Democratic nomination for Secretary of the State. At the state Democratic Convention, she lost the party's endorsement for the nomination, to Representative Ellen Scalettar, but won enough delegates' votes to qualify to run for the nomination in a primary. During the primary campaign she charged her opponent opposed Megan's Law and was soft on sex offenders.[6] She won both the nomination, and, in the general election in November, the office itself. She won re-election in 2002, but in 2005, while serving, she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the gubernatorial election of 2006. She withdrew from that race in September 2005, and on November 7, 2006, won a third term (running through 2010) as Secretary of the State.
In her time as the chief elections officer and business registrar of the state, she has made technology a focus of her administration. Bysiewicz developed Connecticut’s first electronic filing system for voter registration to prevent fraud and encourage registration. She also instituted an electronic business searching system called CONCORD that allows users to search a database of all the registered companies in the State of Connecticut.
In 2006/2007 Secretary Bysiewicz implemented new voting technology including adoption of the optical scan machine and a vote-by-phone procedure so that Connecticut voters with disabilities are able to vote securely and independently. She advocated with success at the legislature for the passage of a constitutional amendment that would allow 17 year olds to vote in primaries.[7]
On February 7, 2010, the Hartford Courant reported that Attorney General Blumenthal was investigating whether Bysiewicz violated the law by using e-mail addresses obtained by her office in their official duties for campaign use—soliciting campaign support and donations.[8]
On January 27, 2009, Bysiewicz made public her intention to seek the Democratic nomination for governor of Connecticut in the 2010 election.[9]
In February 2009, Quinnipiac University conducted a poll in which they asked:“If the Democratic primary for governor were being held today and the candidates were Dan Malloy, Susan Bysiewicz and Jim Amann, for whom would you vote?” Of the Democrats who responded, 44% said they would vote for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, 12% said they would vote for Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy and 4% said they would vote for James Amann, former Speaker of the House.[10]
In a poll conducted by the Susan Bysiewicz gubernatorial exploratory committee in October 2009, support for incumbent Governor Jodi Rell fell to 47% in a head to head contest with Susan Bysiewicz who received 41% of the respondents’ vote. When asked how they would vote if the election was held between Rell and Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, poll respondents said they would vote 52% for Rell and 31% for Malloy. In Bridgeport alone, those taking part in the poll were asked who they would vote for if the primary were held that day and they said Bysiewicz 31.44 percent, Malloy 14.56 percent.[11]
In January 2010 Bysiewicz dropped her bid for Governor, choosing to instead run for Attorney General. On January 21, 2010 Quinnipiac University released its results a poll of the primary for Attorney General which found that Susan Bysiewicz had a 52-point lead (Bysiewicz 62, Jepsen 10, Undecided 24, 593 Democratic Voters, MOE +/- 4%).[12]
On November 3, one day after the general election, Bysiewicz announced that democratic candidate Dannel Malloy was the unofficial winner of the governor race, beating republican Tom Foley.[13] Later that evening the Associated Press, who had also called the race largely based on Bysiewicz' announcement, "un-called" the race when it found that Foley actually led in its vote count.[14] One major reason for the election discrepancies was the conduct of the election in Bridgeport, where local officials ordered an inadequate number of ballots to meet turnout. [15] President Obama had paid a last minute visit to the City of Bridgeport, and introduced Dannel Malloy,[16] and the resulting increase in ballot requirements took the local election board by surprise. [17] Bridgeport Democratic Registrar of Voters Santa Ayala, one of two officials responsible for ordering the ballots, noted that other communities ran out of ballots. She disputed the widely quoted figure of 21,000 ordered ballots, but didn’t provide an alternative number. Ayala said, “We base the number of ballots we order on prior elections. The Republican and Democratic registrars agreed on that number.” [18]. Bysiewicz cited these counting delays---including an bag of uncounted ballots found after Election Day [19] -- caused by the ballot shortages in Bridgeport for the confusion, though despite her role as Chief Elections Officer she denied bearing any responsibility for the ballot shortages.[20] Bysiewicz said she had directed local officials to order enough ballots but had not monitored Bridgeport officials to ensure the directive was followed, as she had no legal authority to do so.[20] Bysiewicz answered Tom Foley directly, on a local Connecticut NPR radio program [21], who complained that she had improperly announced a winner. Bysiewicz argued that she had made it clear the results were "unofficial", and that she was merely, "sharing information", and promised to send Foley any information he required when he requested it.
Bysiewicz planned to announce the official winner of the election on Friday, November 5, after receiving all of the official ballot results.[22] Late afternoon, Friday, November 5, Bysiewicz announced Dannel Malloy as the official winner in the gubernatorial election by a much larger vote total of 5,637 votes which differed from the early results announcement two days earlier when she declared Malloy the unofficial winner by 3,103 votes.[23]
After Bysiewicz announced her bid for Attorney General, a number of observers questioned her legal qualification to hold the post, citing a state statute that requires the Attorney General to have spent ten years in "active practice" of law.[24] Bysiewicz claimed that her years managing the Secretary of the State's office should be applied against this requirement. She sought an opinion from the current Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal on the issue.[25] Blumenthal responded that he believed the law to be valid, but the question as to whether Bysiewicz met the requirements had to be decided by the courts or the legislature.[26][27]
Bysiewicz also had to explain filing a form seeking a waiver of a state fee, when she claimed not to be actively practicing law. Her spokesperson said she had made a mistake.[28] While Bysiewicz vowed to continue her campaign despite the qualifications controversy prominent Republicans suggested she was "cooked"[29] and "delusional."[30]
Under deposition on March 31, 2010, Bysiewicz admitted that "she has never argued a case before a judge and couldn't remember being in a courtroom to observe litigation since law school."[31]
On May 5, 2010, Superior Court Judge Michael Sheldon ruled that Bysiewicz was legally qualified to run for state attorney general.[32] However, when the case reached the Connecticut Supreme Court on May 18, Justice Flemming L. Norcott, Jr. handed down the court's 7-0 unanimous ruling that Bysiewicz failed to meet the requirements of General Statutes Section 3-124, which outlines the qualifications for state attorney general.[33][34] As a consequence, Bysiewicz was unable run for attorney general in 2010, leaving former State Senator George Jepsen the sole remaining Democratic candidate in the race, which he subsequently won.[33]
On January 18, 2011 Bysiewicz announced she was a candidate in the 2012 election for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Joe Lieberman, who will retire at the end of his present term. [35]