The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Ex-justices helped sink nominee
Emails detail talks on blocking McDonald for chief of state’s highest court
Two former state Supreme Court justices worked behind the scenes to help kill Justice Andrew J. McDonald’s candidacy for chief justice, Hearst Connecticut Media has learned.
From the moment Gov. Dannel P. Malloy nominated McDonald to lead the high court, C. Ian McLachlan, who served on the Supreme Court from 2009 to 2012, provided advice to Republican lawmakers on strategies to take McDonald down.
Peter T. Zarella, who served on the high court at the same time as McDonald, also participated in the secret effort to defeat McDonald.
Dozens of emails released under Connecticut’s open-records law show Republicans were privately asking the former justices about McDonald’s legal decisions.
Ian McLachlan, 75, was first contacted by his cousin, Republican state Sen. Michael A. McLachlan, of Danbury, on Jan. 8, hours after McDonald — who was the governor’s former Capitol lawyer and Stamford legal counsel — was nominated. McDonald has been a member of the state Supreme Court since 2013.
“Surprised by house vote,” Ian McLachlan wrote to Senator McLachlan the day after Rep. Livvy Floren, R-Greenwich, sided with House Democrats to narrowly endorse McDonald. “Floren is an airhead.”
State Rep. William Tong, DStamford, co-chairman of the legislative Judiciary Committee, called the former justice’s remarks “a new low” in the historic defeat of a judiciary candidate.
Ian McLachlan also edited criticism of McDonald’s nomination prepared for Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, suggesting that references to gay marriage be eliminated. Boughton said Friday he “vaguely” remembered Ian McLachlan reaching out to him, but that Boughton never issued the statement.
Ian McLachlan and Zarella, 68, now both in senior roles at the Hartford firm McElroy, Deutsch,
Mulvaney & Carpenter, did not respond to requests for comment.
By Jan. 11, Senator McLachlan, who served on the Legislature’s Judicial Committee, was, on the advice of his cousin, requesting detailed case information from McDonald.
A nomination withdrawn
Three days before McDonald’s hearing in the Judiciary Committee, Zarella was forwarded a question that Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano had asked of McDonald on the issue of conflicts and recusals.
“(McDonald) responds he was only asked (to recuse himself) once,” wrote Michael Cronin, the chief legal counsel for Senate Republicans, on Feb. 23. There was no reply from Zarella to Cronin in the 144 pages released to Hearst by the Office of Legislative Management following a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
Zarella, the former chairman of the West Hartford Republican Town Committee, was appointed by Gov. John G. Rowland in January 2001 and served three years with McDonald before retiring at the end of 2016.
In 2006, Zarella was nominated to be chief justice by thenGov. M. Jodi Rell, to replace William J. Sullivan. But Rell withdrew the nomination a month later, after news broke that Sullivan had postponed the release of a controversial decision to possibly help Zarella’s candidacy. McDonald was a state senator from Stamford and co-chairman
of the Judiciary Committee at the time.
Zarella and McDonald were often on conflicting sides of major issues. Zarella opposed samesex marriage and the 2015 repeal of capital punishment for death row inmates.
Exchange between cousins
On Jan. 17, McDonald, who would have become the nation’s first openly gay chief justice, told Senator McLachlan that no communications existed among him, the governor and the governor’s legal and criminal justice staff over the capital punishment repeal.
On Feb. 2, Ian McLachlan suggested the senator doublecheck the records of the state Office of Policy and Management for any such communications, evidence that could have sunk McDonald’s nomination.
Two days before the Feb. 27 Judiciary Committee hearing, Ian McLachlan advised Senator McLachlan that in fighting McDonald’s record on the death penalty repeal, “pushing the narrative about racism might backfire because of ‘Black lives matter.’”
The cousins arranged to meet before the committee’s hearing, which lasted 13 hours and ended in a tie vote.
As late as noon on the morning of the hearing, Ian McLachlan sent talking points to Senator McLachlan on arcane legal arguments, such as the differences in state rules on judicial responsibility.
According to the email chains, Zarella was also looped into the effort on Wednesday afternoon, March 7, when Ian McLachlan asked whether McDonald, as Malloy’s chief legal counsel in 2012, worked on the successful repeal of the death penalty that year.
“I would be curious to know whether AM in fact lobbied for 12-05,” Ian McLachlan wrote to Senator McLachlan, referring to McDonald’s initials and that bill by its Public Act number after it was signed into law by Malloy. “We certainly assume as counsel that he did.”
Nearly all the emails were between the McLachlan cousins and the extent to which the ideas contained were shared among other Republicans is not clear.
‘Has vote been achy?’
Senator McLachlan, a nonattorney, said he has regularly consulted Ian McLachlan during his 10 years in the General Assembly.
Zarella attended some of the cousins’ meetings to discuss the McDonald nomination, the senator said.
“I know Peter, I’ve met him. I’ve had lunch with him,” Senator McLachlan said Friday. “They were trying to shed more light on what an issue is. It’s what I’m supposed to do and, frankly, it’s a good thing.”
Fasano, of North Haven, said Friday he did not find it unusual that McLachlan would seek advice from his cousin.
“It’s the same thing as the judges who used to serve who spoke in favor of Andrew McDonald,” Fasano said. “People have the right to speak when they leave state service. There is nothing in these emails about sexual behavior, bias, belligerent behavior, or slanderous.”
McDonald narrowly survived a 75-74 vote in the state House of Representatives on March 12, and was defeated 19-16 in the Senate on March 29, amid Republican claims of “judicial activism.” Democratic leaders blamed homophobia, dislike of Malloy and threats to judicial independence.
On Friday, Malloy called McLachlan and Zarella “two cowards” who “undermined” the judicial institution they formerly served by conspiring with Republican lawmakers rather than giving their opinions on McDonald in public testimony.
“To try to do it any other way is far below the conduct you would expect from someone who served on the Connecticut Supreme Court,” Malloy said. “It’s Trumpian politics infecting Connecticut. Most honorable people would show up at the public hearing and be subject to cross examination.”
On the afternoon after the House vote, Ian McLachlan wrote to his cousin’s private email account. “Has vote been achy?” he asked. “Not rock solid but I’m continuing to pray,” Senator McLachlan responded.
On Friday, March 23, the senator, in an interview with Hearst, said he had not yet made up his mind on McDonald’s nomination.