In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday night, Attorney General William Tong discussed litigation addressing issues ranging from climate change to online safety, putting an emphasis on his relationships with fellow attorneys general in crafting those lawsuits.
His frequent collaboration with other states was a theme that ran through his discussion with events host John Dankosky in the third installment of The Connecticut Mirror’s “In the Room” event series.
Tong said he is aware of the criticisms he has received about consistently involving Connecticut in multistate lawsuits. But, he says, his response to those critiques would be: “Which ones do you want me to sit out?”
[WATCH: “In The Room” with AG William Tong]
Tong touched on a range of litigation during the conversation at the University of Connecticut’s Stamford campus, including consumer lawsuits against ExxonMobil and LiveNation and a child protection suit against Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
Both the Meta lawsuit, which accuses the company of violating trade-practice and child protection laws, and the Live Nation lawsuit, which claims the company exercises monopoly power in violation of antitrust laws, were filed by dozens of states, including Connecticut.
That coordination is necessary, Tong said, because no attorney general can work on the litigation alone. And, he argued, the issues raised are important to Connecticut.
“Do you want me to take a pass on the fight against Meta and TikTok to protect our kids? You want me to sit out and not file a case against ExxonMobil? You want me to take a pass on the antitrust cases against Google and Amazon and Apple?” Tong said. “I don’t think we can because… this is Connecticut business. Right? This affects all of us.”
Tong, who represented Stamford in the state House for over a decade before being elected attorney general in 2018, said serving as Connecticut’s chief legal officer is not so different from being a member of the General Assembly. He argued that his legislative skills and experience play a role in his negotiations with other attorneys general.
He pointed to his ability to work with Republican attorneys general, like Ken Paxton of Texas and Kris Kobach of Kansas, saying they’ve “done a lot of important, multistate business together” despite their political differences.
Conversations around bipartisanship are not new to CT Mirror’s “In the Room” series. In its kick-off on March 28, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy delved into his emerging role as a negotiator and the thorny debate over compromise and working across the aisle.
Similar to Tong, Murphy said elected officials must work with lawmakers to find common ground on certain issues. But he also argued for turning to voting when those political and policy differences are insurmountable.
“I think there are moments where you need to put down your swords and try to find a compromise. I think there are some irreconcilable differences in which the ballot box is your only means of redress,” Murphy said. “I don’t think it’s either-or. I think you have to be doing both.”
And the country’s attorneys general are not immune to the “irreconcilable differences” that Murphy referred to. On May 22, 19 Republican attorneys general petitioned the Supreme Court to block several states, including Connecticut, from pursuing litigation against ExxonMobil and other major oil and gas companies.
Tong’s lawsuit, and those of other states, allege Exxon knew for decades that their products contributed to the emissions that caused climate change, but hid that from the public.
Tong called the Republicans’ petition “ridiculous and absurd” and said he expects the Supreme Court to dismiss it.
Another recent initiative Tong has undertaken involves the rising price of groceries.
He announced last month that his office is seeking detailed cost and profit information from retail grocers in the state in an effort to determine whether their business practices are partly to blame for persistent elevated prices of food staples.
Tong said at the time that he was prompted to pursue the inquiry after a Federal Trade Commission report, released last month, found that major grocery chain profits “rose and remain elevated” in the wake of pandemic-induced disruptions to food supply chains — even after those disruptions appeared to have eased.
“We’re all concerned about inflation,” Tong said. “We all know that the cost of food is going up, and the cost of groceries is going up. And we all feel it.”
Tong is no stranger to conversations about food: He spent part of the discussion talking about his childhood growing up as the son of two immigrants who worked seven days a week operating a Chinese restaurant in Wethersfield.
He recalled his father’s checkered pants and chef’s smock splattered with soy sauce and oil, as well as the distinctive sights, smells and sounds from hours spent working in the restaurant’s hot kitchen.
But it wasn’t the sight of his father that Tong remembers most vividly.
“It was the smell of 12, 15 hours of caked-in, baked-in Chinese food,” Tong said. “And I looked forward to that. And I can still smell it.”
Tong said his upbringing taught him about the struggles faced by working people and small business owners. But, he said, it also proved that the son of immigrants could grow up to become a state constitutional officer.
“I think we know that that only happens in one place in this world, and that’s in this country,” he said to applause.