Tong’s defense of McDonald may cheer Trump, Kavanaugh

Is Stamford state Rep. William Tong, the candidate for attorney general endorsed by the Democratic state convention, legally qualified for the office?

Tong’s qualifications are being questioned by Connecticut law blogger Ryan McKeen, whose questioning of former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s qualifications for attorney general eight years ago led to a state Supreme Court decision ruling her ineligible.

State law says the attorney general must have 10 years of experience practicing law in the state. Tong, co-chairman of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, has been a lawyer that long, but McKeen finds little documentation of Tong’s actually practicing. While the secretary of the state’s job involves the law and Bysiewicz is a lawyer, the state Supreme Court would not count her tenure as legal practice.

But the law is unconstitutional, for Connecticut’s Constitution declares that except as it specifies otherwise, every elector is eligible for any office in the state, and the Constitution establishes no other qualifications for attorney general. Disqualifying Bysiewicz, the Supreme Court contrived to ignore the Constitution’s plain intent, lest democracy mess with the legal establishment.

The bigger problem with Tong’s candidacy is not his lack of legal practice or his Bysiewiczian craving for higher office but rather his inclination to demagoguery. A few months ago, defending Governor Malloy’s nomination of Supreme Court Justice Andrew J. McDonald for chief justice, Tong declared that the General Assembly should not “second-guess” the decisions of judges because that would violate the constitutional principle of separation of the powers of the branches of government.

But while the governor nominates judges, the legislature does the appointing and can evaluate a nominee only by examining his record, which Tong urged his colleagues not to do with McDonald.

Of course Democrats in Congress have just launched a hostile inquiry into the record of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. So the president might be delighted to quote Tong against “second-guessing” by fellow Democrats. ***

No transparency at Central: A third professor at Central Connecticut State University, who hurriedly retired, has been accused of misconduct, this one charged with reckless endangerment and interfering with a police officer in connection with injury to a student.

As with the two other recent cases, public access to the defendant’s personnel file at the university has been denied because the professors union contract forbids access and state law allows union contracts to trump rightto-know law. Did Central coddle this professor, concealing repeated misbehavior, as it did with the previous two professors, one of whom repeatedly got away with sexual harassment?

The university is investigating the latest case but its contract with the professors union may prevent full accountability.

A spokesman for Governor Malloy, Kelly Donnelly, says the administration is committed to transparency. So why did the administration consent to the contract provision nullifying transparency?

How long will that provision remain in effect? Will university officials try to remove it? Will anyone in authority in state government explain how the public is served by the law enabling state employee unions to nullify transparency? Will anyone in authority propose to repeal it?

Or will everyone in state government remain a tool of this pernicious special interest?