Connecticut Governor Plans to Announce Resignation Tonight
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: June 21, 2004
Gov. John G. Rowland of Connecticut plans to announce this evening that he will resign from office, six months after questions about his relationships with people doing business with the state prompted an impeachment inquiry and refocused a federal corruption investigation on the third-term Republican.
Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell, also a Republican, would assume Mr. Rowland's office and complete his term, which runs until January 2006.
``The governor will be speaking live tonight at 6 p.m. from the residence,'' a spokesman for the governor, John T. Wiltse, said this morning, as television crews gathered at the Capitol. People who have been briefed on the governor's plans said he would announce the resignation then. William Dow III, Mr. Rowland's personal lawyer, also told The Associated Press the resignation would come tonight.
Mr. Rowland had no plans to appear today at the ornate old building where he has held office since 1995. And the state House Select Committee of Inquiry, which was expected to conclude impeachment hearings this week, temporarily suspended testimony today.
In just seven more months Mr. Rowland, 47, would have become Connecticut's longest-serving governor since the state adopted its constitution in 1818. When he was first elected, in 1994, after serving three terms in Congress, he was the youngest governor in the nation. Six years later he was considered a possible running mate for George W. Bush.
``My first reaction is one of sadness,'' said William A. Hamzy, a Republican who has served on the House committee that has spent the last two weeks hearing testimony in the bipartisan impeachment committee. ``I served 10 years under this governor. He's someone I looked up to. It's hard not to be impressed with a guy who has the political resume he has at age 47, who's accomplished what he's accomplished. And that's what makes it even more difficult to understand how he threw it all away.''
Laments were abundant today, but some reflected regret over what the state has endured in the last six months rather than of the loss of a seemingly limitless political talent.
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