Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a thorn in the side of Attorney General and Senator-Elect Dick Blumenthal, is challenging in the U.S. Supreme Court what it calls “the $200 billion backroom deal between major tobacco companies and 46 state attorneys general” spearheaded by Mr. Blumenthal several years ago. The Big Tobacco settlement is Mr. Blumenthal’s marquee suit . During his recent successful campaign for the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal, who shuttled some of the settlement pay-off cash to his former law partners, mentioned the suit prominently in many of his campaign ads, and on other occasions he has praised himself for providing money to Connecticut's cash starved treasury. In its petition for Supreme Court review, CEI claims that the “Master Settlement Agreement” violates the constitutional provision against multi-state agreements that have not been approved by Congress. “The tobacco settlement was hatched in a smoke-free backroom between tobacco companies a...

In 2007, the Competitive Enterprise Institute compiled a report titled “The Nation’s Top Ten Worst State Attorneys General.” Topping the list at number one was Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal; Elliot Spitzer, drummed out of office by a sex scandal, was third. Bill Lockyer, number two in the 2007 listing, has since been elevated to State Treasurer of California, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. If Blumenthal does decide to run for governor, there are ten other “worst” attorneys general who will be vying for the first position. “Over the past decade,” said Hans Bader, Counsel for Special Projects at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “attorneys general have increasingly usurped the role of state legislatures and Congress by using litigation to impose interstate and national regulations and to extract money from out-of-state defendants. The worst offenders flaunt such abuse of power, with the most notorious of the lot … boasting that he ‘has redefined th...