<font size=4>Dean seeks distance from suit
Won't file answer; leaves matter to AG<font size=3>
By Glen Johnson and Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff, 12/23/2003
EXETER, N.H. -- <font size=4>Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said yesterday that he would not file an answer -- due in Washington County Superior Court in Vermont today -- to a lawsuit against him demanding that he unseal papers from his governorship, and instead would leave the matter to his friend William Sorrell, the current attorney general in Vermont.
"We decided to take the campaign completely out of this," Dean said in a brief interview after a Town Hall meeting in Exeter.
Asked whether he would challenge a request that the case be expedited on the court docket, Dean said, "We have just completely pulled ourselves out of this. Whatever Sorrell wants to do, he can." Dean appointed Sorrell to the post.
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Dean is one of four defendants named in the lawsuit brought by the conservative-leaning group Judicial Watch. The other three are the State of Vermont; the state archivist, Gregory Sanford; and the secretary of state, Deborah Markowitz.
Michael McShane, an assistant attorney general in Vermont, said the state would file a response on behalf of Sanford and Markowitz. He said he did not know whether his office would file an answer on Dean's behalf, though he said it was likely because "the actions he took that are complained about were taken while he was still governor."
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Dean's rivals pounced on his refusal to file an answer, saying Dean was wrongly placing responsibility for the records' release on the attorney general.
"There's one person who can open these records to public inspection, and that's Howard Dean," said Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. "Dean says voters have the power. If Dean really means what he says, he should trust voters with the information in those 145 boxes."
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Dean was putting off the inevitable. "Howard Dean is going to have to respond in court sooner or later, and he won't be able to hide behind behind the attorney general or the secretary of state."
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Dean's refusal echoes the position his campaign has staked since the lawsuit was filed against him Dec. 4. Shortly after the filing, the campaign put out a statement saying: "A judge will now decide which documents should be released. This removes the issue from the context of a political campaign and puts it in the hands of an unimpeachable third party, where it belongs."
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The lawsuit contends that Dean should make public 145 boxes of documents that he sealed for 10 years upon leaving the governor's office. Dean says the documents are subject to executive privilege. Judicial Watch alleges that he is concealing the documents for political advantage as he seeks the presidency.
When he left office, Dean explained his reasons for sealing the documents in an interview on Vermont Public Radio. "Well, there are future political considerations," Dean said. "We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor."
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He has since said the comment was meant jokingly.
The issue of Dean's records has become fodder for rivals and Republicans. <font size=4>Senator Joseph I. Lieberman<font size=3> of Connecticut recently ran a television ad in New Hampshire that criticized Dean's handling of the records issue, saying, <font size=4>"We Democrats are better than that." Ed Gillespie<font size=3>, the Republican National Committee chairman, attacked him in a recent speech, saying <font size=4>Dean's statements about his records "were completely at odds with all the facts."
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Meanwhile yesterday, Dean said President Bush should call Congress back into session this week so it can pass an extension of unemployment benefits for an estimated 90,000 who lost them Sunday. During the first six months of next year, more than 2 million unemployed people across the country will lose the extra assistance unless Congress acts. In Massachusetts, 2,500 workers a week will lose their benefits, according to government statistics studied by a congressional committee and several economic analysis groups.
Congress would not agree to an extension before it adjourned for its holiday recess.
Dean said restoring the benefits would cost about $1 billion a month and could be paid with an estimated $20 billion reserve in the unemployment trust fund.
"Cutting people off at Christmas is the hallmark of an insensitive administration that's much more in tune with the needs of American corporations and multilateral corporations than they are in tune with ordinary American working people," Dean said. |
