William Tong talks about lawsuits and collaboration in CT Mirror interview

In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday evening, Attorney General William Tong discussed litigation on issues such as climate change and online safety, emphasizing his relationships with his colleagues in drafting these lawsuits.

His frequent collaboration with other states was a theme that ran through his discussion with event moderator John Dankosky in the third installment of the Connecticut Mirror's “In the Room” series.

Tong said he is aware of the criticism he has received for repeatedly dragging Connecticut into litigation involving multiple states, but his response to that criticism would be, “Which of these should I suspend?”

[WATCH: “In The Room” with AG William Tong]

During the conversation at the University of Connecticut's Stamford campus, Tong discussed a number of legal disputes, including consumer lawsuits against ExxonMobil and LiveNation, as well as a child protection lawsuit against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

Both Meta's lawsuit, which accuses the company of violating trade practices and child protection laws, and Live Nation's lawsuit, which accuses the company of exercising a monopoly power in violation of antitrust laws, were filed by dozens of states, including Connecticut.

This coordination is necessary, Tong said, because no attorney general can handle the litigation alone. And, he argued, the issues raised are important to Connecticut.

“You want me to give up fighting Meta and TikTok to protect our children? You want me to sit out and not file a lawsuit against ExxonMobil? You want me to give up the antitrust cases against Google, Amazon and Apple?” Tong said. “I don't think we can do that because… that's a Connecticut issue. Right? That affects all of us.”

Tong, who represented Stamford in the state House of Representatives for more than a decade before being elected attorney general in 2018, said serving as Connecticut's top law 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 cited his ability to work with Republican attorneys general such as Ken Paxton of Texas and Kris Kobach of Kansas, saying they had “done a lot of important business together in several states” despite their political differences.

Talks about bipartisanship are nothing new on CT Mirror's “In the Room” series. In the March 28 inaugural show, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy discussed his new role as a negotiator and the tricky debate about compromise and bipartisan cooperation.

Like Tong, Murphy said elected officials need to work with lawmakers to find common ground on issues, but he also advocated voting when those policy and policy differences are insurmountable.

“I think there are moments when you have to put down your swords and try to find a compromise. I think there are some irreconcilable differences where the ballot box is the only way to get things resolved,” Murphy said. “I don't think it's an either/or. I think you have to do both.”

And the nation's attorneys general are not immune from the “irreconcilable differences” Murphy mentioned. On May 22, 19 Republican attorneys general filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking to block several states, including Connecticut, from taking legal action against ExxonMobil and other major oil and gas companies.

Tong's lawsuit and those filed by other states allege that Exxon knew for decades that its products contributed to the emissions that cause climate change but concealed this from the public.

Tong called the Republicans' petition “ridiculous and absurd” and said he expected the Supreme Court to dismiss it.

Another of Tong’s initiatives concerns rising food prices.

Last month, he announced that his office is requesting detailed cost and profit information from the state's grocers to determine whether their business practices are partly to blame for persistently high prices for staple foods.

Tong said at the time that he was prompted to launch the investigation after a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report released last month found that profits at major grocery chains “increased and remain elevated” following pandemic-related disruptions to food supply chains – even after those disruptions appeared to have eased.

“We're all worried about inflation,” Tong said. “We all know that the cost of food is going up, and the cost of food is going up. And we all feel it.”

Conversations about food are not uncommon for Tong: He spent part of the discussion talking about his childhood as the son of two immigrants who ran a Chinese restaurant in Wethersfield seven days a week.

He remembered his father's plaid pants and chef's coat, splattered with soy sauce and oil, and the distinctive sights, smells and sounds from the hours he spent working in the restaurant's hot kitchen.

But it wasn't the sight of his father that Tong remembered most vividly.

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William Tong talks about lawsuits and collaboration in CT Mirror interview

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