Interview with Ross Garber on Entering Attorney General Race
June 18, 2010
Ms. Perez:	One of the hottest races in this state in the quest for Attorney General, a seat held by Richard Blumenthal now for the past 20 years.  Our next guest would like to succeed him.  Ross Garber is an attorney with Shipman & Goodwin out of Hartford.  He is perhaps most well known as the attorney who represented the Governor’s office during the John Rowland scandal.  Thanks Ross for being here.
Atty. Garber:	Thanks for having me.
Ms. Perez:	Let’s start off with, you know, I want to know why you want to be AG and I’m asking that for two reasons.  First of all because you’re part of a very thriving practice which I imagine is very good to be part of and you also, you have represented both Connecticut’s and South Carolina’s offices during some very scandalous and ugly times so you’ve seen the seedier side of politics.  Why get involved?
Atty. Garber:	That’s exactly the reason.  When Richard Blumenthal announced that he was not going to be the Attorney General after 20 years, you know, folks started to talk to me about, you know, my thoughts on potentially running and the reality is it’s such an important job.  It’s a job where we need somebody who’s, you know, obviously a real experienced lawyer, who’s going to go into it and represent the interests of the state.  You know people ask me all the time why would you leave such a successful private practice and the answer is because it really is important especially now given the challenges facing the state.  It’s a critical time.
Ms. Perez:	And talk about some of those challenges that you think that you would have to take care of.
Atty. Garber:	Well, you know, we certainly have, you know, economic issues facing the state.  One of the issues is keeping jobs in Connecticut and, you know, the Attorney General can play an important role in that.  We don’t need an Attorney General who is going to chase jobs out of Connecticut.  We have to vigorously enforce the laws but we have to do it in a way that makes people know that Connecticut is not unfriendly to business and that’s one of the things we’re going to do.
Ms. Perez:	Do you think that Attorney General Blumenthal has created an atmosphere where people think that Connecticut is unfriendly to business, I mean by filing unnecessary lawsuits or?
Atty. Garber:	In short, yes.  I mean, you know, any place I go in the country they know in Connecticut, in part because of Richard Blumenthal, because of all the lawsuits that he’s filed, because of all the subpoenas that he’s issued, and, you know, he’s been effectively campaigning for higher office for the better part of 20 years by issuing all these subpoenas, by filing all these lawsuits, some of which are just plain unnecessary.
Ms. Perez:	For example?
Atty. Garber:	Well, you know, there are lots of them.  There’s the Big East lawsuit, there’s the investigation of Lyme Disease which I worked on, there are lots and lots of those cases.  You know, in my experience, you know, there are ways to get people to comply with the law before you file a lawsuit.  Lawsuits are not the first option.  They are always, if anything a last resort and when I’m the Attorney General, we’re going to work with businesses, we’re going to work with people to make sure they comply with the law.
Ms. Perez:	But how do you reconcile your opinion that perhaps there have been unnecessary lawsuits with Blumenthal’s amazing popularity.  I mean he’s got a favorability rating that’s through the roof.  So obviously people in Connecticut think he’s doing alright.
Atty. Garber:	Look, you know, my first goal in office is not going to be popular.  It’s going to be to do the job.  You know we’ve had an Attorney General for the past 20 years who is popular but who, you know, I frankly think I can do a better job at certain things than he’s done.  We’ve got a Democrat who’s running for Attorney General who wants to be just like the current Attorney General and my Republican opponent is somebody who wants the job to accomplish social objectives.  I think what the people of Connecticut want is a good, experienced, qualified lawyer.
Ms. Perez:	But, um, and we’ll get to your opponents in a second and to get back to Blumenthal, I mean, but I, when I say that he’s popular, I mean I think that people support what he’s been doing, no?
Atty. Garber:	Well I think certain things people do support.  I think people want a really effective advocate for consumers and I’m going to be that advocate.  I’ve got an incredible amount of experience in the courtroom, outside the courtroom, advocating for people and, you know, that’s something that I’m going to bring to the Attorney General’s office and I think people are going to like that about me.  I am going to stick up for the consumer.  In other respects though, you know, there are these lawsuits, there are these investigations, some of which go nowhere.  There’s an immense backlog of pending cases at the Attorney General’s office that I’m going to have to clean up right away.
Ms. Perez:	Right and you said, when you say immense backlog, you mentioned to me the other day, how big is it?
Atty. Garber:	Well I think it - a report from the Attorney General’s office said that there were something like 30,000 plus pending cases in the office.  That’s a lot of cases.  It’s a dramatic increase in the past few years and it’s something that we’ve got to look seriously at.
Ms. Perez:	So I know that you have said that you don’t want to make the office, you know, a place for your personal agenda but are there issues or certain topics that you will be watching more closely?
Atty. Garber:	I’m going to be making sure I’m the best lawyer for the State of Connecticut every day, representing state agencies, giving them good advice, keeping them out of trouble, representing the state in litigation and enforcing the laws.  That is not an office where you should be bringing a personal agenda.
Ms. Perez:	Right and speaking of personal agenda, because Martha Dean is very well known for her love of the Second Amendment, I mean is your concern that her entire focus or much of her focus will be on supporting that?
Atty. Garber:	Well it seems that that’s been where a lot of the focus has been.  You know, the issue of, you know, teaching school children how to use guns, I think number one is a very bad idea, number two it’s just not the role of the Attorney General.  You know, the issue of de-criminalizing drugs, again it’s a bad idea and it’s not the role of the Attorney General and, you know, the notion of, you know, in the Attorney General’s office looking at God’s law and its supremacy to man’s law, again, that’s not what the people of Connecticut want.  They want a good lawyer to enforce the laws of the State of Connecticut.
Ms. Perez:	Let’s talk about George Jepsen.  He’s, I mean I think he’s widely regarded as a competent, well-liked guy and attorney.
Atty. Garber:	Well again, you know, I think it’s his goal to be just like Richard Blumenthal.  He said that he wants to be an activist like Richard Blumenthal.  That’s not what the people of Connecticut want now.  They want a lawyer who’s going to enforce the law but not drive businesses out of the state, not drive jobs out of the state.
Ms. Perez:	But when you say that that’s not what the people of Connecticut want based on what because again Blumenthal’s favorability ratings are still through the roof.
Atty. Garber:	Well, that is true but I talk to people all over the place.  What I’m going to do is effectively and vigorously enforce the laws of the state.  I’m going to protect consumers but I’m going to do it in a way that makes sense, that doesn’t drive businesses out of the state and so we can have both.
Ms. Perez:	And so when you say, you know, lawsuits are going to be the last resort, so you work with businesses to get to some sort of agreement obviously before it reaches that point.  Like for instance how?
Atty. Garber:	Well I spent the better part of my career working on cases with the Department of Justice, the SEC, the Federal Trade Commission and attorney generals’ offices all across the country and what you do is just what we do in our normal lives.  Generally if we have an issue with somebody else, we don’t go out and file a lawsuit as the first thing.  We don’t start yelling and holding press conferences as the first step.  What we do is we approach the person, we say look we’ve got a dispute, let’s try to resolve it.
Ms. Perez:	I’m just going to take 10 seconds to ask you, do you think you got in too late?  Do you have enough time to like make up all this time?
Atty. Garber:	The voters of Connecticut are very educated, they’re - they make sure they know the issues and I think they’re going to evaluate the race.
Ms. Perez:	Alright.  Thanks a lot.  Ross Garber running for Attorney General.  We thank him for being here today.  Thanks Ross.
Atty. Garber:	Thank you.