The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A pivotal position opens with senator’s retirement
State Sen. Gayle S. Slossberg’s decision to not seek re-election gives Democratic leaders ample time to seek candidates for the swing district that could determine the balance of power in the Senate.
But the Senate still has weeks of hearings, debates and votes for the veteran 52-year-old lawmaker before she departs.
One of the lightning-rod issues is Supreme Court Justice Andrew J. McDonald, the former state senator from Stamford whose pending nomination could fail in a partisan vote after Slossberg’s announcement she would refrain from voting.
Her recusal dates, in part, to a closed-door “screaming” incident before fellow Democrats in 2012 cited as evidence in Slossberg’s husband’s unsuccessful motion to disqualify McDonald from a 2014 case before the high court.
Key district
The 14th Senate District includes Milford, Orange, half of West Haven and a section of Woodbridge, and includes 21,787 registered Democrats, 13,038 Republicans and 27,969 unaffiliated voters, according to the Secretary of the State’s Office.
The departure of Slossberg, who won by 17 percentage points in 2016, takes away a proven vote-getter for Democrats. A Republican held the seat before she took it in 2004
In leaving, she joins Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr., who recently decided not to seek a third two-year term representing the shoreline district around his Branford home. Another veteran Democrat, Sen. Paul Doyle, of Wethersfield, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is seeking the party’s nomination to run for state attorney general.
“I think, obviously, there will be competitive races,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, who for years was a carpool partner of Slossberg’s. “I’m confident we’ll have strong candidates running on a good message and we can retain those seats and pick up a few.”
Balance of power
With a precarious 18-18 tie between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, her recusal puts McDonald in jeopardy if GOP lawmakers take a unified position against McDonald, as they did in the Judiciary Committee vote.
In her living room Friday afternoon, as Mason the family poodle made the rounds of visitors, Slossberg reinforced her decision not to vote on the nomination.
“I’ve recused myself,” she said. “I don’t know what else there is to say. I have a conflict. That’s very clear. I have a conflict and there was no way to vote on this that doesn’t raise questions and it is incumbent upon me to behave with the most integrity in my position. So, given the conflict, which is of a very personal nature, I don’t believe it’s appropriate for me to sit in judgment on this decision.”
But in interviews with several people who attended the June 2012 meeting, Hearst Connecticut Media was told the conflict between McDonald — then Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s legal counsel — and Slossberg was not at all the “screaming” match she cited as part of her conflict. Three people said they did not recall “screaming” at all. One witness said “Gayle gave as good as she got” in the exchange over the constitutionality of a contentious piece of legislation.
Plus, they noted, Slossberg voted for McDonald’s appointment to the Supreme Court seven months later.
An old argument
In the June 2012 meeting, McDonald was no longer in the state Senate, having taken the job as Malloy’s Capitol lawyer after the 2010 election. Slossberg, as co-chairman of the Government Administration & Elections Committee had pushed through legislation on campaign-finance reform supported by legislative Democrats.
It was around the time of Malloy’s veto, and the governor’s staff met with Slossberg, as well as staff members of Senate and House Democrats.
“Near the outset of the meeting, Justice McDonald started screaming at me, at the top of his lungs in a very personal and shocking manner,” Slossberg wrote in her sworn affidavit of December, 2014. “After a long tirade, it was clear to me that his conduct had nothing to do with the legislative issues to be addressed at the meeting, but rather with his personal animus towards me.”
The affidavit accompanied her husband David Slossberg’s motion for McDonald to recuse himself because of “personal animus” from an earlier classaction lawsuit involving McDonald’s husband, Charles Gray. The motion was rejected and a lower court’s order of $20 million in damages from the Hartford Fire Insurance Company to Slossberg’s client, the Auto Body Shop of Connecticut, was overturned unanimously by the state Supreme Court.
“I would hardly characterize the meeting as Gayle being a victim of some kind of bullying,” said one person, who like others, requested anonymity because they still work in the Capitol.
“I would say it was an even fight, a fair fight,” said another witness. “Voices were raised, but she was giving as good as she was getting. You could tell these were two people who did not like each other, but the staff didn’t try to stop it.”
Contentious nomination
Republicans in the General Assembly have included the affidavit as a reason to sink McDonald’s nomination. Democrats, in response, said it’s being cited to cover up anti-gay sentiments. The resulting firestorm has overloaded GOP phone lines in the Capitol. Republican Senate leader Len Fasano complained about the campaign to get McDonald confirmed.
“The bullying and intimidation tactics used in an attempt to garner support for Justice Andrew McDonald’s nomination to be chief justice have gotten out of control,” Fasano said in a statement. “Not only are Republicans being targeted by big money ad campaigns, but now a Democrat lawmaker is being attacked in a way that is a disgrace to the institutions of our state Legislature and the judicial nominations process. The real issue here is the methodology of Justice McDonald’s decisions that needs to be examined, understood and fully vetted before anyone can determine how they are going to vote.”
Duff, the Senate majority leader, said McDonald’s fate doesn’t come down to Slossberg.
“Regardless of Gayle’s recusal, it really rests on Senate Republicans and whether they are going to make this a political vote or a vote on qualifications,” Duff said Saturday. “So far, Republicans have said that Andrew is highly qualified.”
The House, with a 79-71 Democratic majority, is scheduled to vote on McDonald’s nomination Monday. If confirmed in the House, the Senate would vote on McDonald’s future later in the month.