M. Jodi Rell, Former Republican Governor of Connecticut, Dies at 78

M. Jodi Rell, who was the first and, to date, the only Republican woman to serve as governor of Connecticut, beginning her seven years in office when the incumbent resigned in a corruption scandal, died on Wednesday in Florida. She was 78.

Her family, providing no other details, said she died in a hospital after a brief illness.

Mrs. Rell had been the state’s lieutenant governor for more than nine years when, in July 2004, she took over the governorship from John G. Rowland, a fellow Republican who had been arrested on a federal corruption charge of accepting $107,000 in gifts from people doing business with the state and not paying taxes on them. He was convicted and sent to prison.

“She steadied the ship, and returned a sense of decency and honesty to state government at a time when both were sorely needed,” her successor as governor, Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, said in a statement on Thursday.

Known as a moderate Republican, Mrs. Rell sought bipartisan compromise — a goal that became more important to her, she said, when, five months after becoming governor, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. She returned to her office in the Capitol, in Hartford, nine days later.

“I have been unexpectedly confronted with my own mortality, as I was told that I had cancer,” Mrs. Rell acknowledged to legislators in delivering her State of the State address. They gave her a standing ovation. Many wore pink ribbons to signify their support for breast cancer research.

“I am looking at things a little differently now, with different eyes,” she added, “eyes more focused on what is truly important, what is truly necessary.”