Colin McEnroe has an interesting blog post up about the latest flap about whether Susan Bysiewicz is legally qualified to be Attorney General.

Colin focuses on her comment about her ‘staff’. I think this is a non-issue. Clearly, she should be speaking with her campaign staff about this. It would also seem clear that the staff of the person in charge of running elections should have an opinion about this. For that matter, staff does not necessarily mean paid staff in a campaign.

More importantly, people are starting to point to the Connecticut Constitution which states “Every elector who has attained the age of eighteen years shall be eligible to any office in the state”

Colin writes:

The problem is that the AG statute is in conflict with the Constitution. So, to prevail in that way, Byswiewicz would have to seek to have the statute struck down, which would take time and be messy and call attention to this whole issue of her qualifications.

To which I replied on his blog that

The Connecticut Constitution does seem pretty clear in favor of Ms. Bysiewicz. However, I don’t view her seeking to strike it down as being messy or detrimental. It would keep her name in the spot light. It would show her as fighting for the people of Connecticut and not beholden to the lawyers’ lobby. I suspect she would easily prevail and she could then use that as an example of her qualifications.

Even more importantly, it will take the focus off of how on January 5th, her campaign sent out a press release about filing an amicus brief in Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield in which she said,

“Now, we risk not just falling backward, but creating harmful new disruptions to an election in‐process. For that reason, it is vital that the Court hear from someone this law directly affects, an actual candidate who has pledged to participate in the Citizen Election Program in 2010."

Then, while the Second Circuit was hearing oral arguments, announced that she would not participate in the Citizen Election Program in 2010.

Ms. Bysiewicz’ decision not to participate in the Citizen’s Election Program is a harmful new disruption.