Mattei: State Needs Prosecutor As AG

In the Trump era, Connecticut needs a state attorney general who has served as a federal prosecutor with experience bringing corrupt politicians, gun traffickers, and predatory financiers to justice.

So argued Chris Mattei.

Who just so happens to be a former assistant U.S. attorney who worked on those kinds of cases.

Mattei is emphasizing that experience as he seeks to break from the pack of Democrats seeking their party’s nomination this year to succeed retiring George Jepsen as the next state attorney general (AG), the ​“people’s lawyer” who advises state government and files public-interest lawsuits on consumer, environmental, and civil rights matters.

“The role of the attorney general has changed so much that right now, what is important is that you have a prosecutor who has supervised lawyers in the public interest in federal court on complex multi-jurisdictional investigations. That’s what I have done. I don’t think there’s any other candidate in the race who has that kind of experience,” Mattei, who is 39, grew up in Windsor, and now lives in Hartford, said during an interview on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program, a day after he made a campaign stop to the newly renovated Atwater Senior Center.

Mattei is using that prosecutorial distinction to counter opponent Clare Kindall’s AG experience argument — she served 20 years as an assistant attorney general before leaving the post to launch this campaign — and William Tong’s legislative experience argument. Tong co-chairs the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee, where he has championed measures like a proposed ban on ​“bump stocks” and ​“ghost” guns. (Read more about that here.)

(Click here to read a story about previous interviews with Democratic attorney general hopefuls Clare Kindall and Michael D’Agostino. Click here to read a story about Republican attorney general hopeful Sue Hatfield.)

Mattei was one of two federal prosecutors who won the second criminal conviction on corruption charges against former Gov. John G. Rowland. He said he drew a lesson from that case: ​“People who have been involved in politics sometimes develop a sense of self-importance and entitlement. That results in some very bad decisions. … I think that our political system has grown stale. We have had a strong culture of incumbency in Connecticut that sometimes leads to relationships that makes corruption possible.”

In the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mattei headed the Financial Fraud and Public Corruption Unit. He is participating in the state’s public-financing system for this campaign, for which he has raised enough money to qualify.

Like his competitors, Mattei is looking to appeal to the Democratic liberal-left base in this ​“resistance” year of party primaries. As the top state lawyer in charge of filing civil suits on behalf of the government and often in conjunction with other states, the attorney general plays a leading role in addressing issues of concern to that base: environmental protection, gun control, consumer protection, financial fraud, immigrant rights, and civil rights.

On guns, in addition to endorsing Tong’s bump stock/ ​“ghost” gun ban, Mattei vowed if elected to challenge the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act if it passes Congress.

“Connecticut needs to be first in line in federal court in New Haven,”, Mattei said. ​“The act would allow people who come from states with very lax gun laws, no background checks … to get a gun in their home state and come to Connecticut and they would not have to comply with our own laws. It would put Connecticut residents at risk. We would have to sue to block it.”

Mattei cited work he did in the U.S. Attorney’s Office to challenge out-of-state gun traffickers transporting illegal weapons into Connecticut cities as an example of how his prosecutorial experience prepared him for the AG job. He cited criminal securities fraud prosecutions against traders illegally profiting off rigged securitized home-mortgage schemes as preparation for pursuing financial fraud at the state level.

Labor = ​“Special Interest?”

Democratic AG hopefuls are also pitching their candidacies hard to organized labor, which fields many of the workers for primary elections. Mattei, a former SEUI organizer himself, has already picked up endorsements from the machinists, metal workers, painters, electrical workers, and health care workers unions. (Click here to read an Independent op-ed article he wrote last week in support of Yale graduate student-teachers’ union organizing effort.)

He was asked during the WNHH interview about how his union ties would impact the way he does his job, including whether he considers labor one of the ​“special interests” he has vowed to take on if elected.

An excerpt of that portion of the conversation follows:

WNHH: Often unions get defined as a special interest. On the other hand, some people argue that corporations and business establishments don’t get defined as special interests — it’s only when workers organize to counter the influence of capital that they’re called a special interest and somehow greedy trying to get money out of people’s pockets.

Is labor one of many special interests? Or is it not a special interest?

Mattei: I don’t think labor unions are special interests. I think they are nothing more than voluntary organizations of workers coming together to make sure that they have health and safety standards and that they have a decent wage and a decent retirement.

I’m very very proud to have their support. Most of them are out there working in the trades and representing tens of thousands of workers at places like Pratt & Whitney and Stanley and Electric Boat. They’re really the backbone of the middle class. If you want to call them a ​“special interest,” they are probably the special interest of the middle class. I think we need a little bit more of that.

Can I just give you an example? Last week I was in Hamden at the Porcelain [Specrail] Company. The painters are on strike there. They’re making on average $13, $14 an hour. No retirement. They’re paying 33 percent of their salary in some cases for health insurance. They have a $10,000 deductible.

Their last offer to the company was for a 60-cent raise. Sixty cents. And they have to be out on the street picketing for 60 cents. … And that’s with a labor union.

Have you done or would you do anything that labor would not agree with? Can you cite any way, as attorney general, that you would ​“stand up” to [labor] the way you say you talk about ​“standing up” to other interests?

I think it’s hard to predict what issues will come before [the AG]. When I talk about standing up to special interests, a lot of that has to do with affirmative litigation, when you are bringing litigation against in many cases corporate wrongdoers.

You don’t often find yourself as attorney general going out and filing lawsuits against organized labor. You have to assess each issue that comes before you.

Can you think of a position that you have that might not be in accordance with labor?

You know, I don’t know. Take some of the issues that are ripening right now. There was recently a [state] fiscal commission …

… that had nobody on labor on it.

One of their recommendations is to strip retirement and benefits from collective bargaining. I don’t agree with that. I think people have a right to negotiate over the terms of their employment.

Attorney General Jepsen weighed in on that. He said he thought the legislature could take that step …

This last session, a part of the issue was whether or not the legislature could take savings based on the expectation that when the contract expired, workers wouldn’t be able to bargain over certain issues. The legislature wanted to set the terms during the pendency of an existing contract, which would have been a unilateral change.

The advice [Jepsen] gave was that he saw certain legal pitfalls with that approach and then suggested there might be another way to accomplish what the Republicans had asked about.

My own view is if you are party to a contract, you cannot unilaterally change that contract. That’s Contracts 101.

Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below for the full interview with WNHH FM ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with Chris Mattei.