Among the Attorneys General

In January, when Beau Biden announced that he would not run for Congress, I made an offhand comment about the interestingly large number of reports on Democratic attorneys general around the nation who were not seeking higher office.

Our executive editor Dave Blum reminded me of that comment today—apropos of the ongoing saga of Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, and the lies he seems to have told about serving in Vietnam. There were moments today when it looked as though his campaign for the Senate might survive the revelations, but the conventional wisdom among politicos is that Blumenthal will shortly become yet another state attorney general not seeking higher office.

For the nation’s remaining attorneys general, however, there is this consolation: You’re not alone. Comes the news that the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled against Susan Bysiewicz, Connecticut’s current secretary of the state, who was running for attorney general.

Apparently, she was a lawyer for six years before being secretary of state, but state law declares: “The Attorney General shall be an elector of this state and an attorney at law of at least ten years’ active practice at the bar of this state.” And the court ruled that her years as secretary of the state don’t meet the requirement of “active practice at the bar.”

So she’s out, too. A small but real consolation, among the nation’s sad attorneys general.