Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz took the witness stand today in the lawsuit she filed over her qualifications to run for attorney general. (The updated story is here.)
For two hours this morning, Bysiewicz was uneventfully questioned by her attorney, Wesley Horton, about the operation of her office and legal issues she encountered as secretary of the state.
This afternoon, she faces cross-examination by Eliot Gersten, the lawyer representing the Connecticut Republican Party.
It was his questioning of her in a videotaped deposition that yielded sharp exchanges about her complete lack of experience as a litigator.
“I was a corporate lawyer,” Bysiewicz testified today, referring to her legal experience before her election as secretary of the state in 1998.
Bysiewicz is seeking a declartory ruling that her time in office should be counted towards a statutory requirement that the attorney general must have 10 years of active legal practice in Connecticut.
She has been a lawyer for 24 years, but she lacks the 10 years if her time in office is not counted. She also is challenging the constitutionality of the 10-year requirement.