Robert Ward, House GOP leader at critical time in CT, dies
Robert Ward speaking on the House floor.
Robert M. Ward, an unassuming leader of the House Republican minority who rose above partisanship at crucial junctures, helping to fund the reimagining of the University of Connecticut’s dowdy campus in 1995 and to nudge a corrupt governor from office in 2004, died Sunday in hospice care at his home in North Branford. He was 68.
A kidney transplanted from his brother gave him a decade of good health, but the organ failed about a year ago, requiring home dialysis. He had been in failing health since Christmas. His death was announced by friends who served with him in a long and varied career in state government.