Beth Bye’s International Women’s Day.
State Senator Beth Bye (D-West Hartford) found a curious way to spend Thursday’s International Women’s Day.She piled on the bullying of state Senator Gayle Slossberg over the Milford Democrat’s decision to recuse herself from voting on Justice Andrew McDonald’s nomination to the State Supreme Court’s top spot.
Slossberg, who announced Friday she will not seek an eighth term, has a history with McDonald that includes the jurist launching a 2012 face-contorting rant on his former colleague when McDonald was Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s legal counsel. Slossberg voted for Democrat McDonald’s high court nomination in 2013–along with 29 other senators. Bye is confused as to why Slossberg recused herself this time. (It’s not as if Slossberg took a job with an entity she obtained state money for, as Bye famously did.) Bye does not seem to understand that Slossberg appears to have reasonably believed McDonald’s personal animus toward her–known to both of them and witnesses to the attack–would have been enough to cause McDonald to recuse himself from participating in deliberations on cases involving David Slossberg, Gayle Slossberg’s busy attorney husband.
Gayle Slossberg filed a jaw-dropping affidavit in a 2014 case before the Supreme Court as part of a motion seeking McDonald’s recusal. He declined and participated in overturning a substantial verdict David Slossberg had won for his client.
There was a time–until a couple of weeks ago–when we applauded recusals as virtuous acts. A public official understands that circumstances will bring into question his or her ability to exercise sound judgment. Often officials, including Connecticut judges, will recuse themselves without stating a reason. Slossberg has met the standard we set for officials in Connecticut as they discharge their public trust. Bye is offended by this.
Bye was not a witness to McDonald’s 2012 verbal bludgeoning of Slossberg. Nevertheless, Bye dismisses it as “a tense conversation.” McDonald has not denied the ugly attack. He’s had almost six years to apologize and has not.
Almost two weeks after Slossberg’s explosive affidavit became widely known, no witness has stepped forward to contest its content. There’s a simple reason why. It’s true. Every Capitol denizen knows it’s true. Other women could, if fear did not rule the Capitol village, testify to their own unforgettable bullying encounters with a furious McDonald. They believe Gayle Slossberg.