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Letting the Sun Shine
Secretary of State Bysiewicz's efforts to make info accessible to the public are bearing fruit
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Business New Haven
6/24/2002
By: BNH
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Democrat Susan Bysiewicz of Middletown, an attorney and former three-term state representative (from the 100th Assembly District) took office as Connecticut's secretary of the state at the beginning of 1999. One of her first initiatives was to make information housed at her agency more accessible to the public through upgraded technology. Her office's Commercial Recording Division subsequently went online with its CONCORD SYSTEM (accessible at www.state.ct.us.sots), which provides free public access to information on the 100,000-plus companies registered in the state. She is also the author of Ella: A Biography of Governor Ella Grasso, chronicling the career of the nation's first female governor.
When you took office in 2000 you laid out an ambitious agenda to make your office more business-friendly. Where does it stand today?
We've made a lot of progress. We were the first state in the country to have all of our corporate, LLC and commercial-recording information available for free [over] the Internet. We now get about 1.7 million hits a month on our Web site as a result.
What are all those users seeking?
Businesses will look to see if their information is current. It's a way to check what the competition is doing, and consumers use the information use the information to make sure that companies are legitimate before, for example, making a major purchase. Now that that is up and has been very popular, our next phase is to allow companies to file business documents with us electronically. We have just put out an RFP to vendors to begin that process. Now you can download forms and fax-file with us, but this will be a real big step forward, and it's something generally now available in other states. We need to start bringing state government into the electronic age.
What kind of elections and campaign information is available online?
Part of our site is now akin to the federal elections site where you can see who's contributing to [Presidential and congressional candidates]. What we now have available is information provided to us by candidates that they electronically file; these are available within 24 hours of our receiving them.
Are those just for statewide office, or General Assembly and municipal races, too?
Anybody who runs for state office - and that includes state representative and senate, as well as candidates for statewide office. Municipal office [-seekers] are not yet included, but we have discussed that possibility with the town clerks, who do the filings at the local level. So one thing we are looking toward in the future is being the repository for municipal filings as well. The thing is, you're talking about municipal-campaign filings for 169 towns, so there's a resource question. That's something the General Assembly looked at this year, but because of the resource-allocation issue they'll be looking at it again next year.
Your office has begun to sponsor small- and minority-business 'showcases' in New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford. What was the genesis of that, and how is it working?
One of the issues we kept hearing about from small-business owners was that they didn't feel they had adequate networking opportunities, particularly with the banking community, so that they could meet people who might give them financing to take their business to the next level or help get them started. We discovered that there are a lot of people in the banking community who focus on loans in urban areas, loans to small businesses. And the showcases are a wonderful opportunity to get all the [pertinent] state agencies together in the same room, [with] our office, small businesses that can network with one another - now we're up to about 100 business people [per event] who show off their products and services, maybe meet new business partners. They also have the opportunity to meet with representatives of just about every state agency that has something to do with economic development. We also have federal agencies such as the SBA [U.S. Small Business Administration]. And we usually have banks as sponsors. We've also sponsored a series of trade seminars focusing on [export opportunities in] Eastern Europe, Germany, the Caribbean. And we've had two procurement seminars that have been very successful; we think that they are the first ever held in Connecticut. The idea was to let small business know how they can get on the lists to provide products and services to state government. There are literally millions of dollars in contracts set aside for women- and minority-owned and small businesses.
Have you ever tried to measure how many deals are made or loans written stemming from contacts made at events like these?
I think the evidence is anecdotal. I've heard, for instance, of large construction firms that were looking for minority business partners. They went to the showcase and met some people who later became partners. We do know that a lot of businesses that exhibit [at one showcase] think it's productive because they sign up to be part of the next one.
Following the 2000 Presidential election you advocated updating polling-place technology. Is that going anywhere in Connecticut?
Well, we're hoping. Things are happening at the state and federal levels, although more is happening at the federal level. We had a bill that would allow us to test electronic voting machines in three towns. After having met with the Voting Technology Task Force established by the last legislature, we decided to see how voters would respond to electronic voting machines. For this coming election in November we even got vendors to donate their machines for free for the day. Unfortunately the bill that would have allowed us to do the testing - and which would not have cost a penny - did not pass.
What groups tend not to vote in Connecticut?
Young people. When I took office, one of the first reports that crossed my desk was one by the National Association of Secretaries of State. Their bipartisan poll showed that one in five 18- to 24-year-olds did not vote in the 1998 election. When you think about it, 20 percent of the 20-year-olds voted - while 80 percent of the 80-year-olds did. One of our priorities has been to look at how we can motivate young people to participate in [the electoral process].
How about voters whose first language is not English?
Yes. We do notice that Latinos and people who live in large cities in Connecticut tend to register less and vote less. Bridgeport, for example has had some very low turnouts - municipal elections where you get a 20-percent turnout. One of the reasons is that you have more poverty in big cities and therefore people more focused just on day-to-day existence than on [abstractions] like voting. So that's part of it.
Should ballots be bi- or multi-lingual?
Right now there are certain towns where ballot and voting materials are printed in more than one language. That is dictated by federal law. Areas like New Britain, Hartford, Windham, other towns where they have to be printed in Spanish also. And the actual ballot before you walk into the polling place is in English and Spanish.
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