Mary Jodi Rell is a Republican politician and was the 87th Governor of the U.S. state of Connecticut from 2004 until 2011. She was the 85th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, serving under Governor John G. Rowland, who resigned during a corruption investigation. Rell is Connecticut's second female Governor, after Ella T. Grasso. On November 9, 2009, Rell announced she would not seek re-election in 2010, and she was succeeded by current Governor Dan Malloy. Born Mary Carolyn Reavis in Norfolk, Virginia, Rell attended Old Dominion University, but left in 1967 to marry Lou Rell, a U.S. Navy... pilot. She moved to Brookfield, Connecticut in 1969 and later attended, but did not graduate from, Western Connecticut State University. She never graduated from college. She received honorary law doctorates from the University of Hartford in 2001 and the University of New Haven in 2004. Rell served as a Connecticut State Representative for the 107th District in Brookfield from 1985 until 1995. She became Lieutenant Governor after the 1994 election and won re-election in 1998 and 2002.
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