The chairman of the state’s ethics panel violated state law by donating $250 to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and two other Republican candidates vying for the legislature in 2008, reports the Office of State Ethics.
G. Kenneth Bernhard, chairman of the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board and an attorney from Westport, said he was “unaware of the prohibition” and expects “my conduct will be evaluated and handled in the same fashion as everyone else who is subject to the code.”
State laws ban members of the ethics board, and employees of the ethics office, from making campaign contributions to state officials.
Bernhard donated $100 to Rell, $100 to Vincent Marino of Orange who lost against Sen. Gayle S. Slossberg and $50 to Nitzy Cohen of Westport who lost to Rep. Joseph S. Mioli.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
