MONTPELIER — Vermont Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ chief of staff, Elizabeth Brown, resigned from her post last week — and has been replaced by James Ehlers, a close Rodgers adviser, the lieutenant governor told VTDigger Wednesday morning.
Rodgers said Brown, who was appointed chief of staff in mid-November after Rodgers was elected, resigned on Friday so she could focus on a consulting job she’d been holding at the same time.
“She decided that it was too much,” Rodgers said Wednesday, characterizing Brown’s departure from the office as “very amicable.”
The chief of staff is the lieutenant governor’s sole paid staffer. Ehlers, for his part, had been serving as a “special advisor” to Rodgers in recent months, a role he’d held in a volunteer capacity, Rodgers has said previously.
Both Brown and Ehlers advised Rodgers, a Republican and close ally of Gov. Phil Scott, on the campaign trail last fall, when Rodgers unseated then-Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, a Progressive/Democrat.
Both have also run for office in the past, albeit unsuccessfully, as Democrats.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ chief of staff, Elizabeth Brown, resigns.