1. William Morten Tong is an American lawyer and progressive politician who is the 25th and current Attorney General of Connecticut.
24 Facts About William Tong
1. 2.
In 2006, William Tong entered politics upon winning election to the Connecticut House of Representatives to represent the 147th district, which includes most of North Stamford.
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William Tong served six terms in the House from 2007 to 2019.
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William Tong took office on January 9,2019, as the first Asian Pacific-American attorney general and constitutional officer elected statewide in Connecticut's history.
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William Tong's father, Ady, left China for Hong Kong during the Chinese Civil War, and his mother, Nancy, was a Taiwanese American who immigrated to the US from Taiwan in the 1960s.
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William Tong graduated from the elite boarding school, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.
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William Tong received an undergraduate degree in classics with honors from Brown University in 1995.
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William Tong earned a JD from the University of Chicago Law School in 2000.
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In late 2017, William Tong formed an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic nomination for Connecticut Attorney General in the 2018 election after incumbent George Jepsen announced he would not seek reelection.
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William Tong is on the national executive committee of attorneys general who are leading the investigation and litigation to confront the opioid crisis, including Connecticut's case against Purdue Pharma.
11.
William Tong was a part of a small group of state attorneys general who led the investigation against Equifax relating to a massive data breach in which millions of Americans' personal and confidential information was compromised, including more than 1.5 million residents of Connecticut.
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William Tong joined other state attorneys general in challenging Trump, including his attempts to build a border wall and to add a citizenship question to the census.
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William Tong has been a defender of the environment, taking numerous legal actions to protect clean air and water and to confront climate change.
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From 2015 to 2019, William Tong chaired the House Judiciary Committee.
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William Tong then wrote and passed Lori Jackson's Law, a domestic violence gun law that requires the subject of a temporary restraining order to surrender all firearms and ammunition for at least 14 days.
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In 2018, William Tong wrote and passed the law banning bump stocks.
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In February 2013, William Tong announced his bid for mayor of Stamford after Mayor Michael Pavia announced he would not seek reelection.
18.
William Tong lost the Democratic primary to David Martin by less than 200 votes.
19.
In May 2011, William Tong announced he would seek the Democratic nomination for the US Senate seat being vacated by Joe Lieberman.
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William Tong faced Susan Bysiewicz, former secretary of state and now Connecticut's lieutenant governor, and Chris Murphy, the eventual winner, in the Democratic primary.
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William Tong dropped out of the race a year later and endorsed Murphy.
22.
The William Tong campaign raised more than $550,000 in the quarter ending June 30,2011.
23.
On March 7,2009, it was reported that William Tong was being considered by a panel assembled by former US Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman to screen candidates for United States Attorney.
24.
On November 14,2009, the Hartford Courant reported that the panel assembled had forwarded four names to the White House and President Barack Obama for consideration; William Tong was a finalist on that list.