Bysiewicz to Abandon State Senate Exploratory Committee. Will File to Explore Statewide Office.

Who can you believe? Her campaign insisted last year that Susan Bysiewicz would not be running for governor in 2018. The former secretary of the state and eight-time candidate for statewide office would seek a seat in the state Senate. Bysiewicz aide Laura Cahill was emphatic about that in a tart 2017 call to Daily Ructions. Bysiewicz was moving into a district that would allow her to challenge Republican incumbent Len Suzio. She would be selling her home in state Senator Paul Doyle’s district.

Today, Bysiewicz is expected to convert her exploratory committee into a candidate committee for governor. This means the Middletown Democrat will not be running for the legislature from Bristol or Art Linares’s Middlesex County district. Those were once potential launchpads for a Bysiewicz revival. Events have not intervened to allow her another shot at the U.S. Senate. Governor it is.

Bysiewicz started to run for governor in 2006 but abandoned that after some unhappy town committee encounters with rivals Dannel Malloy and John DeStefano. She commenced another run for governor in 2010 but gave that up to run for attorney general when incumbent Richard Blumenthal began his bid for the U.S. Senate when unpopular incumbent Christopher J. Dodd (D-Countrywide) announced he would not run for a sixth term. The state Supreme Court ruled that spring that Bysiewicz had not practiced law for 10 years and was, therefore, not eligible to run.

UPDATE: Uh-oh. Bysiewicz’s campaign for governor is off to a confusing start. The candidate went to the wrong office to file her new campaign papers. The secretary of the state no longer handles those documents, which came as a surprise to Bysiewicz. She eventually made her way to the correct office, the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

It appears that Bysiewicz is exploring a run for governor, but that was included in her April 18, 2017 exploratory campaign formation document filed with SEEC. It included statewide office and General Assembly, but not including state representative or state treasurer.

UPDATE #2: A helpful reader points out that Bysiewicz presided over the transition of election filings from her office to SEEC when she was secretary of the state.