On March 26th 2019, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong visited the Shabtai Penthouse in downtown New Haven. Over the dinner table with Yale students, he invoked his family's humble origins in the United States as Chinese immigrants and the progression of his life through higher education and the political world.
Kellner Academy is honored to release this talk as part of the My Life Series, a collection of recorded personal memoirs of notable leaders of Society.
My Life Film
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Timothy Rawlinson: Moving on from the into DC rivalries. We were blessed this evening to be joined by Attorney General Tong. The attorney general grew up in the Hartford area. He graduated from Brown University, Chicago law school. Prior to becoming attorney general, he was a State Rep. And while a state rep, he serves as the House chairman of the Judiciary Committee and has recently been elected to an Attorney General. So please join us and welcome him tonight.
William Tong: Thank you.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Attorney general, if I may, I just want to give a special thanks to the alum of our society who is, of course, responsible for making the connection here. We usually wait until people actually win elections before we invite them. In this case, Brian Kreiter, who graduated Yale close to two decades ago and was a wonderful presence and inspiration at our society when it was on Crown Street in the townhouse, in fact, we found a photograph of him on the wall here. That's about- must be 20 years old. I will say that- so Brian left Yale College, he went to Harvard. He did an MBA and then went to Wall Street and is now one of the senior people at Bridgewater, runs Ray Dalio's office and has remained a committed, Yale graduate and friend of this society. I will tell you that in the 15-20 years that Brian has lived in Connecticut, he's never called me about hosting a political person in his home until he said that he was having you. And I thought it was obviously extraordinary. And is evidence of how much he respects you. He said, "Shmully, I'm doing this event with William Tong and would like to see you." And, of course, we went down to Westport, to his wonderful home. And were very inspired by your story and the exchange that happened and, of course, your victory. And so I just thought it was important to thank Brian, although he's not here tonight, for having introduced us. And, of course, thank you for coming. So nice to have you. Thank you.
William Tong: Should I- is it customary to stay seated, or do you want me to use this microphone?
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Totally.
Timothy Rawlinson: Whatever you like.
William Tong: I'm not Yao Ming, let's put it that way.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Some sit and some stand whatever is more comfortable for you.
William Tong: I'm just gonna-.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Move over a little.
William Tong: Thank you, Rabbi. And thank you, Toby, for hosting us. We did have the chance to meet at the Kreiter's home, which was a gorgeous and beautiful home. And thank you for inviting me, even though I hadn't won yet. But it's great to be with all of you tonight, and I'm really looking forward to our discussion. I don't plan on making a long speech. Maybe I'll just give some remarks and give you a little flavor of my job and my office and how I got here and then we can just have a discussion about whatever anybody wants to talk about. But since you made reference to it, Shmully, maybe I'll talk a little bit about who I am and how I got here. My parents are immigrants. They came from greater China. My mom was born in Taipei, and my father is from Guangdong province in China. And through good fortune, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of heartache, they ended up meeting in a Chinese restaurant on Blue Hills Avenue in Bloomfield, Connecticut. And they couldn't speak each other's dialects when they met. So they met and had to start dating and broken English. But they finally got there, and they opened a Chinese restaurant on Park Street. And briefly, my father overstayed his tourist visa. And so at one time, my dad did not have his immigration status in order.
William Tong: And if he- we're experiencing that today, people would call him undocumented or illegal. And I can assure you, there's nothing illegal about what my father did. You know, he and my mom came here and worked extraordinarily hard, 15 hours a day, seven days a week, in our family's Chinese restaurant. To give them the opportunity to be here tonight. And it was because of an extraordinary act of grace and compassion that a Republican president named Richard Nixon granted my father's request to stay here in this country. I can tell you more about that later. But I was born to immigrant parents who were not yet citizens. So if I were born today, I would be called an anchor baby. But I'm proud of that distinction, and because of their incredible sacrifices, I had the chance to take advantage of an extraordinary education and went away for college and law school, came back to Connecticut and met the mayor of Stamford, Connecticut, who would later become our governor. And for, I guess you're all young people. But, you know, I always try to convey to folks how important mentors have been in my life. And Governor Malloy was one of them. And because of him, I had the opportunity to run for state representative as a sacrificial lamb in 2006 for a seat never before held by a Democrat and I won. By knocking 6000 doors, I lost 30 pounds and I did.
William Tong: And in the process became the first Asian American elected at the state level in Connecticut's history. Fast forward, I became chairman of the Banking committee, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which if you follow what happens in Connecticut and our legislature is one of the three big committees criminal justice reform, civil rights, our entire criminal justice system, our state's drug laws. All of that goes through the Judiciary Committee. And then George Jepson dropped a bomb on all of us and announced in late 2017 that he wasn't going to run for reelection. And Rowan was standing at the ready, and we hopped in the car and I ran for attorney general. And in November was elected the first Asian American constitutional officer in the history of our state and the first elected Chinese-American attorney general in the history of our country. Now listen closely. I said elected because there have been Chinese American attorneys general in Hawaii. They're appointed. Hawaii screws the whole thing up. And I'm the third Asian American elected attorney general because Kamala Harris screws the whole thing up. And I'm kind of like, come on, Kamala.
William Tong: Just let me have it. And Sean Reyes, also, in Utah. So it's my 77th day as your attorney general. And the question I get most from people when I talk to them about the job because they appreciate how hard the campaign was and how competitive and, you know, campaigns are, They're very sporty affairs. They're spirited affairs. And so, I think people just when they see me, they naturally assume that, you know, I'm having so much fun as attorney general, you know? And so they ask, isn't it great? Don't you love it? Isn't it so much fun? And I say, no, it's not fun.
William Tong: You know, it's not a barrel of monkeys. It's really serious. And I don't know what I was expecting, but the legislature, if you've ever spent time just walking through the state legislature in any state or in the halls of Congress, you see legislators and staff wheeling and dealing, there's a lot of personal interchange, a lot of discussion. It's very sociable. But being attorney general is pretty isolating. And throughout the day I sit in a humongous wood paneled office by myself, and people like Rowan come in 20 minute increments with a new, serious issue or a crisis because it doesn't get to my desk unless there's a problem. Right. If it's easy, somebody else in the office has dealt with it, and I came face to face with one of those issues. At the end of last week or middle of last week, Rowan and I crossed the border from San Diego into Tijuana with 17 other Democratic attorneys general. And I hadn't done that in this era called the Trump era. But, you know, we've done a lot of work on immigration and on countering what we believe to be the unjust policies of this administration around immigration. Family separation policy. The turn back policy. As an anchor baby and the son of immigrants, I felt like I needed to see it myself. So you get on a bus at like 6:30 in the morning, and we go to a mall parking lot where there was a big red H&M sign, and there are some parking spaces.
William Tong: And then there's this huge concrete wall with steel slats stretching into the sky. Now, to be fair, that wall was there before Donald Trump, but it was a stark, imposing physical manifestation of what I think this country is now saying to people in many ways, get out and stay out. And as we crossed over the border, I saw people crossing from the Mexican side into the US to go to work, because there are a lot of people that cross over to go to work every day. And I don't think this is on purpose, but what they walk through is this walk bridge that, you know, is a chain link, basically, and it looks like a cage. And so they walk through this caged bridge and they go into the US to work. And when I got to the other side, what we found was a, a plaza, a nondescript plaza and one of the most dangerous cities in the world, where there's a makeshift pop up tent and a unofficial person with a unofficial notebook, like a composition notebook that you might buy at CVS if you just needed something to write on, take notes in. And this unofficial person takes your name if you want to talk to the Americans about asylum.
William Tong: So if you're fearful for your personal safety, if you're worried you're gonna get killed or hurt and you need to make application for asylum before this administration, you knocked on the door and this country would talk to you. We would say, okay, what seems to be the problem? Tell us your story, and we'll make a determination as to whether or not you're eligible for asylum. Now, you go to this unofficial tent, this unofficial person, and they put your name in an unofficial book while there's gangsters and others swimming around this little plaza. And you wait, and you hope that once a day, someone from the US side comes through and generally talks to 30 or 40 people while hundreds wait on this list. And if you aren't there that day because you got held up or you couldn't come back to the plaza or you're in trouble, then you miss your spot and you start all over again. And we met a kid named Daniel who was 18, has family in LA, and he's been waiting for weeks and weeks and weeks and it's not safe. And he has a very important claim to make for asylum. And what I saw there firsthand was not the separation policy, was not, you know, a debate about immigration policy.
William Tong: What I saw was how we as a country, in partnership with the Mexican government right now, disavow human beings who need help and how we literally turn our backs on them. And that obviously deeply informs what I do every day as attorney general. And we talked about this, I think a lot of people assume that what I do every day is consumed by standing up to the Trump administration on a variety of policies. And it's true that Connecticut is deeply enmeshed in that work from taking on the EPA, which has essentially stopped enforcing emissions, regulations and laws that allow polluters in West Virginia and Ohio to pollute downwind into Connecticut. By the way, environmentally, I guess topographically, Connecticut sits at the end of America's tailpipe. So if you are, you know, trying to make coal great again in West Virginia or Ohio and you shoot pollutants in the air, they blow into Connecticut. And, you know, we're in the middle of the fight, and we've been successful in trying to get the EPA to enforce those laws that have been on the books for a long time to protect us and our air and our water. We're in the middle of the fight to protect title ten and a system of reproductive health care in this country.
William Tong: We just filed a brief yesterday with 21 states total opposing the attempted dismantling of the Affordable Care Act in federal court in Texas. I'm sure you've all heard about that. And, of course, a few weeks ago, the president declared a national emergency where I do not believe there is one. And I think it's a gross perversion of the National Emergencies Act which was enacted to cabin in presidential power. And we filed suit on that as well. And so while that makes the paper. And it's what everybody wants to talk about. And I don't know what else there is in the Mueller report. And I think it will take some time for us to know. But I do know that our democratic norms are at grave risk in our public institutions and our Constitution. And that's why this fight is so important. And no matter what Robert Mueller says, it will continue. But while that's what people want to talk about with respect to my job, it's not the lion's share of what I do. The lion's share of what I do is represent the state of Connecticut as its lawyer, and represent all of you and fight for all of you and your families. And one of the places where I'm doing that most is with respect to generic drugs.
William Tong: And so, as you may know, 90% of the country's prescriptions are generic. It's a $100 billion industry. But people don't understand why if they're generics and they're not branded and not protected by a patent, and there should be free and open competition, why have prices spiked in generics 2000-3000%, and why are they so high? And the answer is because there's brazen outright price fixing in the generic drug industry. And today I just had a major generic drug manufacturer come into my office and try to convince me that the emails that I've seen and the text messages that I've seen between this company and their other major competitors saying, where are we going to set the price, guys? That I didn't see those. And I'll tell you how bad it is, Rowen and I sat through a presentation given by the main lawyer in the generic drug price fixing case in our office. We had a bunch of senior lawyers on my team who hadn't seen some of the most sensational evidence. So he did a PowerPoint for like an hour. And one of the three most senior lawyers in the office, he's watching this PowerPoint and at one point, he couldn't help himself. He just pointed out and he said, they can't do that. That's illegal.
William Tong: Yes, that's the point. And I think what we're learning is that they know it's illegal. And it's not that they're too big to fail, it's that they're too big to care. And they'll continue to break the law as long as they can afford to do it. And this is the point of antitrust law, right? When you're so powerful, you exercise oligarchic or monopoly power that the law has to step in. It's because this case is so compelling that I lead a 49 state coalition. And so everybody else in the country, except for, I think, like Texas.
William Tong: Every other state in the country is with us on this. And that is some of the most important work that I do. And the reason why is because after being in this job for 77 days, what has become abundantly clear to me is that there are just there's an array of powerful forces out there much more powerful than the president of the United States. You know, the tech industry, no offense. And our privacy concerns, the pharmaceutical industry, big food, you know, big agribusiness, big financial institutions and they employ a lot of folks and make the world go around. But there are powerful forces that are bearing down on all of us and in some cases, and in many cases, do great harm, or prejudice American families. And what's standing between those powerful forces and the people in our state are the 200 plus lawyers in the attorney general's office. And that's what we do. We push back, and we act as a firewall. And that's why I get up in the morning, even though it's not that much fun. It is tremendously rewarding and critical work. And I'm honored to do it.
Timothy Rawlinson: Questions.
Alicia Abramson: Thank you for coming.
William Tong: Sure.
Alicia Abramson: I want to ask a question about the first portion of what you spoke about tonight. I'm just curious that if you were in some hypothetical world where you could wake up tomorrow, like, snap your fingers and make decisions, would you- What would you do regarding the southern border? Would you remove a physical barrier? I'm just curious. Like, if you could develop more what your thoughts are, I'd be interested in hearing.
William Tong: I don't think it's about the barrier, because what we know is that we're our country is experiencing the lowest level of illegal border crossings in 40 years, and we have more customs and Border Patrol agents than ever in our nation's history. So I think the barrier and the wall is, frankly, a sideshow. I think if I could snap my fingers tomorrow, Democrats and Republicans would come together and pass a real comprehensive immigration reform bill and do what we all think we have to do, which is to create a system where people can come here legally to work they can work and pay taxes and contribute to our economy, and that there can be a meaningful pathway to citizenship. And a marginal issue is probably should they pay some penalty for having come here illegally in the first place. We can have that conversation. But one of my favorite cartoons that I saw when I was in law school that resonated with me was it was The Economist, and it was a drawing of a pyramid of oranges in a supermarket.
William Tong: And it said oranges picked only by American workers, three for $20. And if you've ever traveled in California and on your way to. Went to a wedding in Monterey. A right, beautiful country. But on your way to Monterey, you go. You go through, like, garlic and strawberry country. Who do you think is picking all that? And we know that if you take 12 million people out of the country's economy who are working, by the way, you will cripple this economy. If you take 1000 people out of New Haven's economy who are working and who are undocumented, you will cripple this economy. Everybody knows that. And so if I could snap my fingers, we would solve that problem. And I don't think we've lost the ability to do that. You catch glimpses of people who maybe have the ability to make that happen, but it's fleeting. You know? Should I just call?
Timothy Rawlinson: Yeah. Feel free. It's cool. All right.
William Tong: I saw this first here.
Ben Daus-Haberle: So you talked about sort of how, as a country, we turn our back on people in relation to immigration, but we turn our back on people in many other ways. You know-.
William Tong: Every day.
Ben Daus-Haberle: We turn our back on people who are incarcerated. We turn our back on people who suffer from drug addiction. And so I'm just wondering how, like, all these things collectively impact your mindset when you're doing your job or like, impact the way in which you go about trying to make effective change?
William Tong: So that question is sort of, there's just not enough justice, right? And not enough time in the day and not enough hands and not enough money. And how do you promote real justice in that environment? And I think the only answer I can give you is you do the best you can as quickly as you can. And I'm very fortunate to have served in the legislature at a time where conditions were good for real change on some of the issues you've talked about. So I'm extraordinarily proud of being the chairman of the Judiciary Committee when we passed the Second Chance Society law, which was driven in large part by the governor, Governor Malloy, and legislators here in New Haven. And to give real credit where it's due, I think the governor was the spark. It's actually Republican governors across the country, many of whom have led the way on criminal justice reform. That's a fact. And, you know, part of the building block of- or a fundamental set of building blocks of criminal justice reform is removing draconian mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession offenses and sentence enhancements that make those mandatory minimum sentences so much worse. And so one of those sentence enhancements in this city was the drug free zones law, which if you ask 100 politicians, 100 politicians will tell you we love drug free zones. We don't want drugs anywhere near schools. So 1,500 feet away from a school, there should be no drugs. Easy. Except in New Haven everywhere is within 1500 feet of a school. So every young African American person who goes to Hillhouse and makes a mistake is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence and enhancement.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: How severe is it?
William Tong: You know, at the time, it could have been an additional 2 or 4 years or more. For possession.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Possession?
William Tong: Yeah. And what do we know about jail? Especially for young people. It's really good at teaching you how to be a criminal. Right. It's not great for rehabilitation and education is terrible for that. So the governor sort of dropped the first you know, ball on the court to push that agenda and then a number of my colleagues really embraced that effort, but it stalled. And it was because it was easy to demagogue the issue and to say, what, you want kids to do drugs because you want to remove drug free zones. You want criminals to run free. I mean, right, you can see. And so we had a real problem, a political problem. And many of my Democratic colleagues then became concerned that this would have a very serious impact on our campaigns and elections. And they were right that it would have an impact. But then there was a moment after the governor called the Republicans racists where it all fell apart. And I had an opportunity to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And we had a meeting of - without the governor - with the four leaders of the caucuses. And what I mean by that is House Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans.
William Tong: And we sat down and I helped them cut a deal, and we passed it. And so I think you have to recognize those opportunities, you know, as they come to you. And, and I will tell you, being a chairman, being an attorney general, you mostly don't do the stuff you want to do. You mostly do the stuff everyone else wants you to do for them. And I'll be honest that when I started that session, Second Chance Society law wasn't like the number one thing I wanted to do. There are a bunch of other things that I was focused on. Our states gun laws are a big part of my record. And it wasn't the top thing on my mind, but it came to me and there was a moment where I needed to just step into that breach, and I think, you know, that's how I reconcile. Well, there's so much to do. Where do you start? You start where you're needed. And you focus on those opportunities and you take them.
Speaker8: Thank you.
Speaker15: I'll go. I'll go this way.
Alicia Abramson: Thank you so much for speaking to us.
William Tong: You 1L's have reading to do, don't you?
Emily Hall: Yes. My question has to do with kind of your thoughts on the role of states in this era of extreme gridlock at the national level, and both the role of states in making policy generally, and particularly as being a model for bipartisanship?
William Tong: Wow. Okay. So let me take a step back and remind everybody that we are a federation of states, right. And this is like first year con law. We have to remember that we are in the sovereign state of Connecticut that is bound together with 49 other states by our consent. Now, there's the complication of the Civil War and all that. But at the end of the day, federalism is still very real. And that is the basis of our union. And that's why when you wake up in the morning, the governor and the state legislature and the attorney general of any one state still serve a very important structural role and where a check, an inherent check on the federal government, a government of limited powers. Right. As defined in our Constitution and when we think that the federal government acts in derogation of its powers, it's our opportunity and obligation to say so and to do something about it, including through the 10th Amendment.
William Tong: It's funny that I'm making this argument because it's a states rights argument that I'm making now because I'm very concerned about the federal government, But under the previous president, who happened to be my common law professor, Republican attorneys general stood up to President Obama, I think, to excess because they were concerned about their state's rights. I'm half joking when I say the Republicans started it, but they kind of did. The big bang of Attorney General coordination was the tobacco case. There's always been coordination, but the opportunity to collaborate on a bipartisan basis around tobacco was huge and has resulted in $200 billion so far and counting to the states and, you know, having smoking in this country, right, in a relatively short period of time. And then Obama gets elected, Republican AGs take on Obama, Trump gets elected. We return serve. That's a very casual and not very apt description of what has happened. What I think is really has happened. What I think really has happened is that as Congress and I think you've already you suggested the answer in your question.
William Tong: As Congress lays broken and they're unable to move the country forward by legislation and by the legislative process, then we find another way. And state attorneys general represent the other way in part of stepping in to the breach, because we're needed. And I don't really think anybody called us off the bench. It just it just happened that as Congress couldn't get out of its own way, the states acted and they acted through their attorneys general. In terms of bipartisanship, The National Association of Attorneys General is an incredibly important organization. I'm not telling you something that is a secret, that there's a Republican attorneys general association and a Democratic attorneys general association. And there was once a detente between the two of them. That was broken in Mark Herring's reelect in Virginia. And so in 2015 or '16 and so there's now fissure between the two organizations. But NAAG the National Association of Attorneys General still, I think, holds this promise for us to continue to collaborate, like on the generic drug price fixing case. So I'm hopeful, but it's definitely a much more partisan tone than I think it has been in the past.
Ben Daus-Haberle: Yeah. So thank you very much. Following up on that. So my grandparents are from the state. My grandparents were Republicans. My uncle Hunter, Republican, I'm Republican. I'm curious what you would say to your Republican constituents about some of the things that you think about across party lines, in addition to this drug fixing case, which certainly is serious, but at the same time, that seems like sort of law and order.
William Tong: Yeah. I mean, it's we need to get back to that. Right. And let's remember that the antitrust laws are there for a reason, and we depend on the Department of Justice Antitrust Division to take action. It's because they're not taking action that I have a 49 state coalition that the Department of Justice's civil Rights Division under President Bush, both of them was vibrant, strong. Because conservatives, Republicans understood that market forces are important, but they're not infallible, right? And that antitrust laws are there to promote a more efficient market and that civil rights violations and intolerance that those are market defects too. Right. And they're inefficient. My University of Chicago law and econ is coming out now.
William Tong: So, I would say to my Republican friends that I think we all started out together agreeing on the rule of law. What does that really mean? That means we respect our institutions. That means article one means something, right? That the appropriations clause and the appropriations power belongs to Congress. That the National Emergencies Act was designed to cabin in presidential power and only defined very specific instances where you could declare a national emergency. I don't think any of that is in dispute. And that the shattering of these norms for short term political gain, they're deeply damaging to this country. What I would also say is my Republican friends are right about growth. That's the only answer to the challenges that we face in this state. Now, growth is hard in a state that is service rich because people want it that way. And people want, you know, as much as, as people in Connecticut bemoan the state of our education system. I mean, folks, it's between the fourth and best education system in the country, no matter who's measuring. Massachusetts is number one. Okay, fine. But we're between 4 and 8.
William Tong: And most people, most parents would love to have their kids go to school here. In most public schools in this state. And, you know, but there are huge challenges in this state that wants all of these services but doesn't want to pay for them. And we also are at the mercy of global economic forces that right now favor cities. And I did this for a long time as a lawyer, a rate of corporate transactions, combinations, divestitures, M&A activity, mergers and acquisitions activity that is at an all time high, right, historically. And what that means is companies are constantly merging in and out of existence. And so I'll give you an example. When I came into the state legislature, Governor Rell announced to great fanfare that we were pulling Starwood from White Plains to Stanford. Okay, $185,000 per job in tax incentives to bring 800 people from White Plains to Starwood. Fast forward less than a decade later, Starwood is sold, you know, to Marriott, and they're gone. What did we do to deserve that? Nothing. Okay. But they're gone. GE. Governor Malloy got killed and had a 90% approval rating for his trouble for GE leaving in 2015, and I was in the middle of that. It was horrible. And they got, you know, Boston, Massachusetts paid a ransom that we were unwilling to pay for GE to go to Boston. And then GE promptly proceeded to implode. Boston couldn't have known that. But these are these global economic forces that are very hard for us to contend with. And I don't think at the end of the day, it's always just about tolls and tax arbitrage. But I'm also not making excuses. They're very real challenges that we have to confront.
Ben Daus-Haberle: Are there aspects of your work that can contribute to Connecticut's growth?
William Tong: Yes, I think that I can signal- signaling functions are incredibly important, right? I can signal to the business community that I want to be a partner. I was talking to the Connecticut Business and Industry Association today. They were concerned about my civil rights enforcement work and how that would impact businesses. But I made the point to them that they should want me to go after the bad actors. But that I also wanted to help the business community, for example, manage privacy risk. You know, because they have so much customer data now and proprietary business data and that I can be a conduit with Facebook and Google and Apple and the big technology companies to try to help them manage privacy risk. That is such an important function of their business now. So, you know, my job is to be a good partner, to hold them accountable, right? And obviously not let them get away with with misconduct, but to send a signal in my own way that that Connecticut is very supportive and open for business.
Ben Daus-Haberle: I was interested in your time campaigning. I was down in Greenwich and Stanford, in the state Senate this past cycle.
William Tong: And oh, who did you work with?
Ben Daus-Haberle: I was with Senator Bergstein.
William Tong: Yeah.
Ben Daus-Haberle: And obviously, you're a legend down there. But I'm curious as to why you ran a really good campaign in 2018.
William Tong: I don't know if that's good.
Ben Daus-Haberle: A very, very good thing. But it's a different type of Democrat down there. I think than we see nationally at least and maybe in the state of Connecticut, especially if you compare a Democrat in New Haven to to down there. So I'm curious as to some of your experiences campaigning, especially maybe some of the challenges you think you face and what that might say about Democrats and a lot of very rich, very whites. I don't want to really use the term, but socially liberal, fiscally conservative places and, and maybe some of the challenges you face, but also opportunities you see campaigning especially for local office in some of these places.
William Tong: So I think at this point in my life and my career, I give not a lot of thought to whether in any one moment I'm more left or more right, whether I have the right combination of progressive and business friendly. Because I think after a while. Because of the way that you to handle issues that arise you sort of end up in certain places. And so I don't worry about that too much, looking at it like a ledger. I think what I've learned though being a Democrat in Fairfield County and being a Democrat in a sea of Republican voters is that it's extraordinarily important for me to tell them who I am and what I'm about. And to build a relationship, which is true about life and anything you do. But I told this story exactly 17,000 times and Rowan heard again this morning.
William Tong: Before I ran in 2006, I was with my friend Pete, who I went to boarding school with, and he's Korean American, and I had married Elizabeth Hotchkiss Tong, who I don't have to tell you, is not Chinese American. In fact, the first, Elizabeth Hotchkiss, is buried not too far from here in New Haven. And she was buried there in like 1630. So Pete says to me at lunch while I'm asking him for money, he says, all right, well, why don't you change your name and run with your wife's name? And I said, what are you talking about? He said, just, you know, it's all white people in that district. They're all Republicans. Run as William Hotchkiss. You'll totally win. And I said, I said, why would I do that? And he goes to hide the fact that you're Asian. And I said, Peter, I'm quite sure they know. And I think over these past 13 years what I've learned. And I do it pretty purposefully now. But also, you know, second nature. I think it's really important to embrace who you are and talk about who you are and where you come from. And if you do that, I think you will find that other people share some part of your experience, you know. And that my experience as a son of immigrants and my parents experience may resonate with you being something of an immigrant, you know. And that if you just engage with people and share with them who you are and where you come from, that will build a real foundation for a conversation. What that translates into is, I'll be very candid, white ethnic voters, Italian, Irish, Jewish American voters in North Stamford really responded to that. They responded to my story because that's their story. And I think that's how you break through.
Tom Baker: Well, I wanted to- excuse me. I wanted to ask you a two part question about your inspiration back then and some of the challenges you faced along the way. So on a similar note, first, obviously the number of Asian American politicians in this country is relatively few and far in between.
William Tong: Yeah.
Tom Baker: For the last decade, you had basically Secretary Locke, Secretary Mineta, and Congressman Honda, and that was basically it outside of Hawaii. So what do you think? You've talked about some of the obstacles specific to being an Asian American, but what do you think are some of the challenges that Asian American politicians face, and why is there such a number? And the second question obviously you've talked about your background in being some son of immigrants. You're not a very independently wealthy person. In a day and age when running for politics- running for office tends to involve huge amounts of money, can you talk about some of the challenges you faced in terms of that as well?
William Tong: So there's a lot in that question. Let me take the first part of the question. Other than racism, let's, you know, I think that there are a couple things that I think contributed to or had contributed to a lack of engagement by Asian Pacific Americans and people of color generally. One is, I think that East Asians, in particular Chinese Americans, don't come from a democratic tradition in our home countries. It's very hard to conceive of how that works. And I think comparatively, you think you see South Asians, Indians and Pakistanis have done a lot better politically in a shorter period of time. And I think it's because of democratic traditions in India, for example. I think that there's, of course, recency of immigration people are focused on making a living and providing for their families. They're not worried about civic engagement. But I think there's fundamentally, among Asian Americans, not just a lack of understanding, but a lack of belief and confidence that, Democratic institutions are open to them and that you can actually run for office and get more votes than the other guy and take office. And I've had people visit from China. Teachers come into the House chamber and look at my desk where there's a voting machine, red, green. And they look and they say, what do you do with that? Like, I press green if I'm yes and red if I'm no. And they're like, and that's it? Like yeah that's it.
William Tong: Yeah. I think Asian Americans are invisible in a lot of the discussion that we have around our table in this country, particularly around race because the paradigm is black, brown and white. And I had to pull aside deputy director of the ACLU, who gave us a three hour presentation on bias and the history of racism in this country. And he was giving it to a room full of Democratic attorneys general. And afterwards, I pulled them aside. It was, you know, standing ovation. People loved it. And I said, that was wonderful, except for one thing. And he looked at me and he knew exactly what I was going to say. And I said, you talked about black brown for the entire three hours, and I don't think you looked at me. And he's like, no, you're absolutely right. And I said, you know, you could have included a slide. And he said, he finished my sentence, he said about Japanese internment. I said, yeah, exactly. Because when we talk about the family separation policy, we've seen this movie before on our own soil. And by the way, for progressives or Democrats in the room, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in this country, Japanese internment, where we lost 125,000 Japanese Americans and camps on American soil, was perpetrated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Earl Warren.
William Tong: Two giants of, you know, the progressive and liberal communities. And so I think being invisible in that conversation is very disempowering. Neutering. And I think people are naturally disinclined to engage, but I think people are getting it. And my father is a Nixon Republican. When Barack Obama was running for president, he said to me one night, we need him to win. And I was trying to get a job with my former professor. So I was like, yeah, we need him to win. And he's like, no, I'm not saying that. He's like, we need him to win. And for the first time, I saw my father sort of getting it. Right. Processing that. That's another brick in the wall that's coming out. And then it made a difference to him and his life. So it's hard. And it will always be hard, at least, I think, as long as I'm alive. But it's nothing to be afraid of. What was the second part of your question? I can't remember.
Tom Baker: The second part of the question is, you grew up the son of immigrants in Connecticut.
William Tong: Yeah.
Tom Baker: And coming from a background where you didn't have a lot of family.
William Tong: Oh, yeah.
Tom Baker: Can you talk a little bit about the opposite?
William Tong: Be nice to your friends at Yale. This is an important point, and I don't want to get all dramatic here, but I've done that already. But I once gave a talk to Yale law students 3 or 4 years ago, and I said it was the Asian American Law Association, but it was a pretty good cross-section of people. And I said figuratively, I don't know if they're actually portraits on the wall, but I said, I know that as you walk around this law school, there are portraits of white men who came before you. And I get it, they're responsible for the world's great injustices. But they also built this country and they built this institution. They built this economy. They built this government. They built the freest, most powerful economic engine this world has ever seen. And they made a lot of mistakes. But they created a legacy and obligation that falls to you. And then I said, now let's look at what we've done with that. And what really broke my heart was watching Jeb Bush stumble, because I think he represents an ethic that his father represented, and we can quarrel with what his father did or did not do.
William Tong: But he represented an ethic of service, you know, and dedication to something, you know, greater than yourself, obviously. And I watched him stumble when he said that the problem with the immigration system in this country was anchor babies and the Latino community in places, swing states like Colorado and New Mexico freaked out. California. And the next day he said, I didn't mean Hispanic and Latino anchor babies. I meant Asian anchor babies. And that's when I was like, oh, you mean me? And to watch him just blow it demonstrated to me that this legacy was shaky. And then I evaluated two people, one who I have great respect for, or one who I have no respect for. But Barack Obama and Ted Cruz, both given keys to the kingdom, right? Both went to schools like this one. Both had every opportunity, despite coming from relatively humble beginnings and even with respect to Barack Obama, I think the jury is still out, whether they're carrying their weight and whether they have fully accepted that responsibility. I don't think Ted Cruz has, obviously, but I think it's fair to criticize President Obama on his performance at times. And so, you know, I think irrespective of whether I have family money and whether I'm able to self-fund a campaign and whether I'm independently wealthy, which I'm not. I'm part of a legacy and an obligation that I hope all of us recognize and embrace. And I don't think it's elitist to say that. I think it's very real. And if you don't do it, nobody else will. I'm going to go this way and then come back to you guys.
Dhruv Aggarwal: Yeah, I'm very interested in a split executive like Connecticut. You're independently in your own right. And you're actually very different from the federal model of one executive and many states in this country. But the problem with having multiple executives as we see at the agency level is the tunnel vision. You know, the SEC sees insider trading everywhere, you know. So how do you realign the incentive of the different people in the executive? For example, if I'm attorney general, I want people I'm not going where you, of course, but the ideal, the typical attorney general will want the people to see. Look, I'm locking people up. Look, I'm using the resources of the state, right? Maybe they want to run for governor next or whatever else they want to do. On the other hand, if I'm governor, I know that all of Connecticut's tax revenues, such as they still exist, are in hedge fund managers in Greenwich, right. And their pension.
Dhruv Aggarwal: That's true. I mean, the pension funds are in crisis and the, you know, the underfunding. So in general, how do we- this is more it's not Connecticut, but, in general, in states where the executive is split, you know, and I for one would toast to governor Tom, tomorrow. But if you, you know, want if you, you know, if you want to show the people you are doing your job as an attorney general as a consequence may over utilize, you know, use too many resources, for example. Or it's not about using too many resources. I'm not advocating under enforcement or over enforcement. I'm just saying, how do you align the incentives of the different parts of the executive branch, because it's not just one person coordinating everything. There's a, you know, agency problem here between the different parts, going back to your line economics tradition. And there's an agency problem between the different parts of the executive. Have you experienced that and if so, how would you remedy that?
William Tong: Well, I don't think it's a matter of having split executives. And I think you have to recognize from a law and economics perspective that democracy is probably inherently inefficient. But it serves a greater value than efficiency, right? Self-government and accountability. I think this is a simple answer, but a real one. Irrespective of whether you have a split executive, whether you're Phil Murphy in New Jersey, who appoints as attorney general or not, you're ultimately accountable to voters. You know, and the SEC is by way of the commissioners being appointed by the president, ultimately accountable to the people. Yes they are. There's a step there. There's a step there. But that's the way that judges who are not elected in the state are still accountable to the elected branches because they're nominated and confirmed by the governor and the legislature. So I don't think there's an easy answer to your question. I don't think it has to do with split executives. I think it has to do with voters holding elected officials accountable. Of late, we've not been particularly good at serving that accountability function. But the problem with that is, is that there's really no alternative. Unless you want to abandon democratic principles. So. Good. Yeah. Sorry.
Robert Jett: Well, I guess I guess I can pull the trigger on kind of the inevitable 2020 question, but, what do you think, just kind of looking forward, was missed in the previous election, I guess coming from a Democratic state but always leading blue generally in elections. And how do you think we as voters can kind of engage kind of more robustly in the upcoming election?
William Tong: So what I'm most concerned about. I think a lot of people are concerned about automation and technology and how it's changing our economy. The way I look at it is a variant of that concern, which is that the world changes every seven minutes. And the disruption that we see in our everyday lives, it's just neck breaking, like repeated whiplash over and over again. You know, I first got- I'm 45 years old. I graduated from law school in 2000, which wasn't that long ago. And I got my first cell phone then, and it was a black and white, like, you know, stick of a phone. It wasn't a flip phone. I was too cool for that.
William Tong: And now, like, I have two smartphones, you know, one in each pocket, and I have instant access to the world. And that's just changed everything. And that disruption is hugely disorienting for people. It just freaks them out. And so when I talked about criminal justice reform, transgender rights, marriage equality, abolishing the death penalty, those are all things that we are so proud to have done here in Connecticut. But our Republican friends in the Naugatuck Valley are totally freaked out by it. And I think that's what you're seeing across the country. And you go to the Pennsylvania town that my wife grew up in, which was a fairly cosmopolitan town. Meadville, Pennsylvania, home of Allegheny College, which had a real vibrant- has a real vibrant college and a vibrant tool and dye industry is now decimated by the modern economy. And so I think it's- I think what maybe we missed it. I don't know if we missed it or we just are living through it. It's that disruption. It's the economic dislocation. It's if you're a 55 white male in Ansonia and you lose your job at Pitney Bowes because it is facing an existential dilemma. You are unemployed. Maybe you get two days at Home Depot, no benefits. And at 55, you have the privilege of living another 40 years. That is what's wrong with America. And I don't know what we do about it, but I think the president is speaking to them. I don't know that Hillary could speak to them. Maybe Joe Biden can. And this is not to make an endorsement or a prediction, but I'm just saying that's I think what challenges this country right now politically.
Ed Pickup: You mentioned both in your initial remarks and in your answer to some of the questions tonight. Did you think norm erosion and the erosion of democratic norms is a big problem facing the United States? I was hoping you could talk a little bit about how you think those norms could be reinforced, and if that's not possible, how they could be reformed down the line...
William Tong: Boy, I wish I knew the answer to that question. Norm erosion is important because without rules, right, we're in some Hobbesian state of war. Right? And we all learn and like philosophy 101, the first year of law school, that government's a pre-commitment device. And you know that rules matter, norms matter, because they create a system of reliability and predictability that we can all rely on and that we can make decisions based on. And if we can't trust them anymore, it's hard to make good decisions at all. I guess what I would say is not to be too Pollyanna about it, but I try to reinforce it with my children, and I have a fantasy that a group of parents and I will come together and we'll write some grand tome about values. Right. And what they mean to us. When do I have time? But I do think that there are still good and decent people out there who try to teach their children right and wrong and respect for each other. I think I grew up in a period. I'm a child of the 80s. I grew up in a period where somehow we transform the meaning and purpose of this country.
William Tong: And what I mean by that is that we suddenly decided, or I think Ronald Reagan decided in part, that the purpose of every public and private institution was to make us as rich as we can possibly be. And that's just not the point. And I came out of college and law school in the middle of that gold rush and, you know, I could have easily and thought very hard about going to banking. And, you know, most many of my friends who fund my campaigns, you know, they went to Goldman, they went to Morgan Stanley, they went to a hedge fund. If they were, you know, in the right place at the right time, somebody gave them $100 million and seeded their own fund, you know, and that was like what it was all about. And then 2008 happened and it all went to hell. And you want to know why Connecticut is suffering? And I'm going to regret this, but Rowan's like, don't do it.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Can we shut the camera off?
William Tong: Let me say one thing. Can we shut the camera off for one one second?
Ruel Jerry: I want to know what your mindset was six years out of law school, going into a race that you're not supposed to win. And, you know, presumably there's months of campaigning and also, presumably there's a job that you'd have to not do for a while. And again, not supposed to win. I mean, what was the mindset going into that? Did you think maybe this is in the future- This is putting me up for the future? Do you think you actually would win? Did you think that maybe four years from now, there would be a seat in a place that I can win? And they'll remember that I was a sacrificial lamb. What was that?
William Tong: I've run for a number of things. Some of them more long shots than others. I've never thought that I couldn't win. I knew that things had to break my way, but I never thought that I couldn't win. And I- do politicians make calculations? Of course we do. And you weigh, you know, all of the factors and forces in the campaign. And you do your calculus and you say this is a good risk or a bad risk. We do all of that. We think about our futures. Of course we do. We're politicians. We're ambitious people. So are the people around this table. But I think why did I make a decision after.
William Tong: My parents made a huge investment in Andover Brown University of Chicago Law School so that I can make $110,000 a year as your attorney general. That is a horrible value proposition, by the way. My salary is set by statute, and it hasn't changed in like 25 years. And the governor, who runs a $40 billion corporation, only makes $150,000 a year. And why does Dan Malloy do that? Run for governor? Why? Why did I do it? I think you have a- I think one develops a sense that really isn't a frontal lobe sense, but you just have a sense that you can do something to be helpful, and you can aggrandize that idea or sensation, you know, that I will be a great leader or that I can articulate a great vision for our economy or that I'm, as Vado said, born to do this. Okay. But at the end of the day, it's just this sense that like, well, if I got in there, I can do something with this. I can be helpful. I can make things happen. And you develop that I think over time in school and in law school and in your first job, and you become my wife calls me Special Forces. I'm not always reliable on a Saturday morning, and I do like to sleep in, but if I hop to it, I get it done. And I just that's who I became over time. And that is my best description of being called to service.
Tom Baker: So I wanted to ask you about potential tension going back to something you said in your initial remarks, which was that, on the one hand, bigness, as you put it, these big institutions with a lot of power are going to go on this track. Big businesses. Big government. Big military. All these things have power beyond one individual's imagination, and they're a genuine threat. But on the other hand, discussion about growth. I think it became apparent that bigness is also the result of success, both in business but also not in business. You know, the civil rights division, having more people and getting bigger and doing more things is the result of the Civil Rights division, being more successful. I think it's just a generally true proposition that when something is successful, it gets bigger. So how do we deal with this tension that bigness is, at the same time, the result of doing things well. And no matter what it is that you're doing, and yet also a very real threat when when it gets out of hand.
William Tong: I mean. That's always been a challenge of institutions, public or private institutions, communities. Right. Schools of thought. And there's a tipping point, I think, where bigness is less about innovation and success and production. And there's a tipping point, not in every institution, but in many, maybe most, where it becomes about power accumulation and the bureaucracy and then it, it very quickly becomes inefficient. Right. And what I try to remind people when they say there's so much waste in government, right. These big government institutions, I try to remind them there's no waste at GM. Right. Of course there is, right. There aren't there aren't underperformers, right, at United Technologies. Of course there are. Right. There aren't people that show up and don't do their jobs. Of course there are. And so these are human institutions. I think the private sector believes and probably is a bit more responsive because they're freer to make decisions than public institutions are. But, you know, you're right. Bigness is a challenge. You know, the one way in which bigness is we're starting to learn bad from an economic development perspective is that big businesses, which Connecticut has lived on for years and years because we were an alternative to New York and Boston, are the net biggest job creators, but they're also the net biggest job destroyers, right? They can lay off hundreds and thousands of people. They can merge out of existence and leave two three four thousand jobs just gone because they left. And so that's a challenge for us in dealing with that bigness, because part of our stock and trade has been to attract big companies to come out to Connecticut and set up shop in Stamford and build a building. And except when UBS and RBS do that, and then in 2008, they hit a wall and they become European zombie banks. Then what? And so bigness in that way has manifest itself as a real liability.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: I'd like to maybe close the night with this question because you have to leave at nine. And if you want to turn the camera off, you can. But I think nights like this are very formative for all of us, particularly the students for whom this is an opportunity to learn something very up close from someone who's done tremendous things in our state. I'd like to ask you, looking back at your life, reflect on your failures and in political life or business life or even personal life, and tell us what you've learned from those failures and how they shaped you and formed your ultimate successors, or continue to inspire you. Things that didn't go quite as well is appropriate.
William Tong: Well, there are good failures that I've learned a lot from, and there are failures that will always be regrets. Let me start with a good failures. I ran for the US Senate in 2011 and 12. I ran because I perceive there was a lane for a Fairfield County Democrat. Chris Murphy and I are the same age and so that got my competitive juices flowing. And I demonstrated very early on that I could raise a lot of money very quickly, which I did. But I learned that you can't create a statewide campaign in one cycle. And after a while, I couldn't raise the kind of money that I needed to raise and keep it going. And I had to drop out of that race. And what I learned was that I learned to be a much better candidate. I learned to have a much better command of issues. I learned to be more accountable to myself. And I learned fundamentally that it was okay to lose and that sometimes politics is a process. But I also learned that, you know, I said, the world changes every seven minutes, but life changes constantly. And that what seemed like a good idea 20 minutes ago, you know, may not be a good idea an hour from now.
William Tong: And, you have to prepare yourself for that, that it seemed like a good idea to run for the US Senate back in 2011, but by early 2012, it seemed like a horrible idea. And that you have to have the stomach for conditions to change. I'm going to tell you one more story. It's a little more personal now, but fast forward to 2013. I was the anointed designated prodigal son. Next mayor of Stamford, Connecticut. Governor who was the mayor, you know, did one of these things. And I raised a ton of money, and I had a ton of support, and everybody assumed that I would win, and I assumed that I would win. And I'll be honest, I probably didn't put my shoulder into it as much as I could. But I was going to be the next mayor of Stamford, and I was going to, you know, governor became governor after being mayor of Stamford. And, you know, that's the way it works. I lost Democratic primary. I had no business losing by 194 votes. And I-
William Tong: 120,000. And I was broken. I was spiritually in confidence broken. And I had two conversations. One with governor two weeks after I lost. And I said, governor, it's over. I'm done. I was 40 years old. He said, okay, fine, but you're not allowed to make any decisions for three months. I said, okay, fine, governor, but I'm done. It's over. Never running for another office. He said, good. That's fine. If you make that decision, I'll support you. You can even come work for me. But you're not allowed to make any decisions for three months. Okay, fine. Came back three months later. He said, are we good now? And I said, yeah, we're good. And then the other person who I talked to was the attorney general, George Jepsen, gave similar advice, which was, he asked me, I said the same thing and to him and I said it was over and it was done. And he said, that's fine. And he said, how old are you now? And I said, I'm 40. And he said, well, I became attorney general at 55 and I spent eight years in the political wilderness. And I said, yeah. And he said, that means you have 15 years before you tell me you quit.
William Tong: And those were two incredibly important conversations that I had, like, you know, in the ashes, not twilight, but in the ashes of a spectacular defeat. And the final thing I'll say, though, is I also am going to get back to your question. Now, I learn what it means to be an Asian American and what it means to be a candidate of color in that race. I had every advantage, and I was brushing my teeth one night and my wife comes in and we had just gone to an event, and an older lady in Stamford came up to her at this event and said, oh, we love your husband. He has such a bright future. We can't wait for the next time to support him. And I said, well, that's nice. And she goes, you don't get it. And this is my white woman wife. I was like, what don't I get? She's like, it's easy for that woman to put you off this time and the next time and the time after that, because you people will just get up tomorrow again and eat another bowl of shit, and you'll keep banging your head against the wall, and they never have to give you your opportunity.
William Tong: And then my wife stopped and she said, let me ask you a question. If your name was David Smith and you were six foot two, do you think David Martin, who beat me would have dared to challenge you in a primary. So it'll always be hard. It'll always be hard being a person of color. Being invisible. Having people doubt you both within your community and outside of your community. And but you just have to accept that it'll be hard. I'm sure it's hard being Shmully Hecht. Right. And it's never going to be easy. But you have to face those challenges and take them on. And that failure lives with me every day.