A Rell of a person

By Scott Benjamin

Random anecdotes on M. Jodi Rell of Brookfield, Connecticut’s 87th governor.

Rell’s entry in to government was by accident.

As she told it, Yolanda Hague, who was a Republican leader in Brookfield for decades, called her shortly after Rell had registered to vote in town and invited her to attend a tea party being sponsored by the Brookfield Republican Women’s Club.

Rell said that she indicated that she was expecting her first child and wasn’t driving much at the time.

Hague offered to pick her up. Rell indicated years later that she enjoyed herself at the event but had no intention of becoming a member of the Republican Women’s Club.

However, during the tea party she asked a question of one of the speakers, state Rep. Fran Collins (R-107), who would become the Republican leader and then the Speaker of the state House.

Collins couldn’t answer her question. However, he did some research and the next day called her at home to provide an answer.

Rell has said that she was so impressed with that gesture that she decided to become a member of the Republican Women’s Club. She later served a term as president and also once served as vice chairman of the Brookfield Republican Town Committee.

Collins, who would be the master of ceremonies on July 1, 2004 when Rell was sworn in as governor, recalled once that when he announced his plans to run for governor in 1974, Rell was one of the people at the Hartford Hilton waving a campaign lawn sign.

Collins, who spent decades as Brookfield’s land-use attorney, has said that John Dempsey (D-Preston), who served from 1961 to 1971 and was noted for conducting the street parade band as it warmed up on Governor’s Day at the Great Danbury State Fair, and Rell were the two most personable Connecticut governors that he had known.

In the spring 1984, Republican David Smith of Brookfield, who had been the state representative in the 107th state House District since the 1976 election told Rell at a social event that the airline that he worked for as a pilot would no longer allow him to do all his flights on the weekends and he would not be seeking a fifth term in the state House.

Rell had been a member of his steering committee in each of the last four campaigns.

She told him, “ ‘Well, David, I’ll have to run for your seat.’ "

Smith replied, “ ‘You were the first person I thought of.’ "

Rell said, “ ‘Daivd, I was just joking. HELLO!’ “

Smith’s wife, Bonnie Smith, who would later serve as Brookfield’s first selectman for 12 years, said that some days later Rell visited their home to discuss running for the seat.

Bonnie Smith said that as Rell was standing near their driveway about to depart in her car, Smith told her, ‘ “What you need to determine is if you can be a legislator and a mother at the same time.’ “

A short time later, as Rell and her husband, Lou, an airline pilot, were returning from their annual Memorial Day weekend trip to visit his relatives, she said, “ ‘I’m not going to do this. Who is going to take care of our daughter and son the last two weeks of the legislative session when they are taking votes at 3:30 in the morning.”

She added that her husband, who she described as “the biggest male chauvinist in the world,” replied, “I’ll take two weeks of my vacation and look after them.”

Rell once said that during her initial campaign for the state House seat in the 107th District she was canvassing neighborhood and spoke briefly with a woman who was doing repairs to her driveway.

Rell recalled that the woman immediately said, “ ‘You don’t need to say anything more, honey. I’m going to vote for you because we need more women in government.’ “

Rell moved on to the next house, but then decided to walk back to the driveway.

She told the woman, “ “You didn’t ask me what my position is on any issue.’ “

The two of them briefly discussed Rell’s platform, and then the woman said, ‘Three out of four is pretty good.’ But it doesn’t matter, because as I said I’m going to vote for you because we need more women in office.’ “

The late Russell Fryer, who taught Political Science at Western Connecticut State University (WCSU) from 1963 to 1998 and again part-time from 2004 through 2009, had Rell as a student in the early 1980s when she was attending the school part-time.

Some years later, he remarked that she was one of those two or three students that you typically have who are regularly active in the class discussions.

Fryer, who praised Rell’s performance as governor, said, “ ‘Based on what she said in class, I never would have thought that as governor she would have signed that civil unions legislation.’ “

Rell apparently was concerned about the draperies at WCSU.

She once said that as a student she didn’t like the looks for them. When she was a state representative she would tell school officials that maybe the university could get more state funds if it improved the looks of the campus, including the draperies. Then as lieutenant governor, when the midtown campus was undergoing a major renovation in the late 1990s, she said that she was pleased that the campus has nicer-looking draperies.

Former state Sen. Jamie McLaughlin of the 32nd District, who now lives in Darien, has said that Rell was an excellent example of how you succeed in the General Assembly not through speeches on the floor but via personal contact with your colleagues.

McLaughlin has said that, “She would be at the State Capitol early in the day having bagels with legislators and then go to a social event that night after the session concluded. People loved to co-sponsor Jodi’s legislation.”

During an event on June 8, 2004 – which was Zip Code Day -06804 – in Brookfield, Rell carried with her a framed photograph of Republican former President Ronald Reagan, who had just died. It has been taken in 1985, her first year as a state representative, during a visit that she made to the White House.

Even after becoming lieutenant governor and then governor she continued to be part of Brookfield. She frequently was guest reader at the elementary schools and she could be seen at meetings of the Brookfield Volunteer Fire Company’s Women’s Auxiliary. She was the featured guest at tea parties to raise money for the Brookfield Library.

Shirley Allen, an editorial typist at Housatonic Publications would comment that she would see Rell shopping a Kmart in New Milford and even as governor she blended in well with the customers.

On Tuesday, June 9, 1998, I interviewed her in room 304, the lieutenant governor’s office, at the State Capitol, and when she learned that I was teaching a section of American Government on Wednesday nights that fall at Western Connecticut State University, she offered to be a guest speaker. It was the first of two appearances that she made in my classes.

The students were impressed on September 30 when she noted that after she became lieutenant governor she visited the chief elected official in each of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities.

Rell said through the years that people at various levels of government did not communicate enough with each other.

Six years later I saw one of the students from that class pushing a baby stroller at New Milford Village Fair Days, and she reintroduced herself and was impressed that she had hear Jodi Rell speak and now Rell was weeks into being the governor.

Sixteen days after Rell spoke to my class the first time, I spent part of a day traveling with her to write a story on her campaign for a second term as lieutenant governor.

I arrived at room 304 shortly before her and after she checked with her staff she came to speak with me in the lobby area and said how much she enjoyed speaking to the students.

“I hope I did the right thing by telling a lot of personal anecdotes about being in government,” she added.

I replied that that can be at effective strategy. I added that the late Jim Murray, the Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist of the Los Angeles Times, who had grown up in Hartford and West Hartford and graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, has written that friends neighbors had asked him about what Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was like in the locker room and what kind of women did he date. Murray wrote that no one ever asked him how Sandy Koufax held the ball when he threw his slider.

About an hour later, I was with Rell as she waited with Joe Courtney, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor outside a studio at WFSB-TV as they were about to appear on Face The State.

Rell saw that I was standing by myself at the other end of room and she asked me to come over and said, “Scott, tell Joe that story you were telling me about Sandy Koufax.”

Courtney, who had graduated from Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford was conversant about Jim Murray.

Rell noticed that I was bored standing away from the other people and tried to make me feel more important by interacting with her and her opponent.

The late Tom Gallagan of Brookfield, who was once a neighbor of Rell’s and served as her campaign driver in 1994, said that she was the coordinator for Meals On Wheels for the elderly in Brookfield and in the summer to complete her tasks she would put her children in the car and deliver the food to various sites across town.

She would put her children in the car to do Meals On Wheels in Brookfield.

Rell said that she had a good rapport with Rowland during his six years as congressman from the Fifth District and had access to some of his campaign meetings in 1990 because she was part of the state House Republican leadership team with Bob Jaekle of Stratford, who was the GOP leader and Rowland’s running mate that year for lieutenant governor.

Lowell Weicker won the 1990 election, and when Rowland was making his comeback in early 1994 he met with her at a restaurant to discuss possible candidates for lieutenant governor in the upcoming election.

Rell said that they said “maybe on some prospective candidates, laughed at some of the others and went ‘no way’ on a few of the potential selections.

She said that near the end of the conversation, Rowland said, “What about you?’

Rell said she indicated that he might want to reconsider that possibility since they lived in the same congressional and that potential ticket probably wouldn’t provide geographical balance.

That June Rowland made it official by naming her as his candidate to be the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.

Two days after Rowland announced that he would be stepping down from office, she returned my phone message and we did a nine-minute phone interview.

She then apparently indicated the size of the change from going from lieutenant governor to governor.

I thanked her for speaking with me, and she indicated that she had “42 phone messages” on her desk.

State Rep. Bob Godfrey (DF-110) of Danbury always insisted that Rowland and his aides didn’t listen enough to Rell when she was serving as lieutenant governor. Godfrey maintained that Rell was “a practical and pragmatic”{ official – the kind that often succeed in government.

Democrat Bill Curry, who ran against the Rowland-Rell tickets in 1994 and 2002 later covered Rell in the mid-2000s when she was governor and he was a columnist for the Hartford Courant.

In recent years Curry has praised Rell’s commitment to campaign financing reform, election enforcement and doing more for Connecticut’s inner cities than any Democratic governor in his lifetime.

Regarding campaign finance reform and the way campaigns used to be conducted.

Rell said that in 1998 when she and Rowland were running against Democratic U.S. Rep. Barbara Kennelly (D-1) of Hartford and Joe Courtney, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, one of the guests at a fund-raising reception asked how he could help further.

Rell said in those circumstances she would say that if a person could provide a list of names and contact information for potential contributors, she would follow up with a phone call.

The next Sunday afternoon, she called one of the names from the list that had been provided and after speaking with that person for three minutes she asked for a certain amount and there was prolonged silence on the phone.

Rell said, “‘I thought. Did I ask for too much? Did I not ask for enough?”

Finally, the recipient of the phone call said, “I think you should know that I am Barbara Kennelly’s personal attorney.’ “

Rell said that she apologized and politely ended their phone conversation.

Three days later, she received a check for $500 from the gentleman for her re-election campaign.

Rell once said that one of the things that women bring to government is humility. She said that “they often aren’t the ones standing front and center at a bill signing. They are willing to give credit to other people and maybe stand in the back.”