M. Jodi Rell, the calm and reassuring Republican second-in-command who steadied Connecticut after a corruption scandal forced the resignation of Gov. John G. Rowland on July 1, 2004, died Wednesday. She was 78.
She died in a Florida hospital after a brief illness, her family announced Thursday.
Rell took office as a little-known lieutenant governor, but immediately became Connecticut’s most popular politician, a status she enjoyed until leaving office in January 2011.
Rell’s extraordinarily long political honeymoon stretched beyond finishing the last two years of Rowland’s third term to winning an election to a term in her own right with 63% of the vote in 2006, a modern record.
She was a moderate Republican, a supporter of abortion rights who was a member of the General Assembly when it voted to codify in state law the tenets of Roe v. Wade. As governor, she signed a bill legalizing the civil unions of same-sex couples, a step that lead to a court case resulting in gay marriage.
She opted against seeking a second full term, leaving office as Connecticut struggled with a gaping budget shortfall after the recession of 2008.
Rell was a groundbreaker as only the second woman to serve as governor, and the first Republican. But she offered a fatalistic view of her ascension and the role she would play.
“My mother used to have this expression, I’m sure all mothers do: ‘You’re at any given place at any time for a reason,’ ” Rell said.
When her portrait was unveiled in 2013, she wryly noted her status as the second woman in the gallery.
“I have to tell you, I’m a little bit pleased to help Ella take on a few of these men,” Rell said, casting an eye toward portraits of many of her 86 predecessors, all but one a man. Her portrait will hang near the sole exception, Ella T. Grasso.
At the ceremony, she was praised for her leadership in a difficult time.
“We all know that she took over under very difficult times,” said John McKinney, the former Senate minority leader. “We all know that when she took over, the confidence of the people of Connecticut in their government, in their office of the governor, was as low as it’s ever been and as low as it possibly could be.”
Her legacy was less what she did than how she did it, he said.
“She governed with class and character,” McKinney said. “That to me is the great legacy of Jodi Rell. We cannot do what we do, we cannot serve the people of Connecticut, if they don’t trust and believe in their government leaders. She restored that trust.”
Rell expressed her dismay at the state of politics.
“I miss some of the people, but I don’t miss the politics,” Rell said.
Three days before her first Christmas as governor in 2004, Rell was diagnosed with breast cancer. Nine days after a mastectomy, she delivered a State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly. The ovation was heartfelt, thunderous and sustained.
Rell negotiated ethics reforms with the Democratic majority in 2005, including the public financing of campaigns, which she accepted only as a condition of other reforms, most notably a ban on campaign contribution from state contractors.
“I hated public financing. I hated the idea of it. But if we were going to get the other things, you had to give a little,” Rell said.
Her first months were so pitch-perfect that one gleeful Republican operative called her the GOP’s own Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.
But her administration and the state struggled as the economy stagnated and the estimated budget gap grew to more than $3.5 billion. Those who vied to succeed her were sharply critical, including those in her own party.
“It’s politics, and I understand that. I understand that when I’m gone, there are going to be more shots,” Rell told the Connecticut Mirror. “I think the public understands it. And I hope the press understands.”
She found comfort in the fact that Connecticut was one of 47 states in crisis.
“All of the states are suffering right now from the worst national recession we have had since the Great Depression,” Rell said. “And I think the public recognizes that it’s not any one individual’s fault. It’s not any one party’s fault. Frankly I think it brings to the surface that we need to work, really work, together if we are going to address it.”
Rell’s husband, Lou Rell, a former Navy aviator and commercial airline pilot, died in 2014 at age 73. He was a booster of her career, encouraging her to run for the General Assembly from Brookfield, where they lived and raised two children.
Her survivors include her son, Michael, and daughter, Meredith, and several grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.