"If you're going to have a hard time explaining to your mother what you're about to do, you don't want to do it."
With those words, state ethics Executive Director Carol Carson closed an hour-long ethics-training session in Hartford on Wednesday for more than two dozen people newly elected to the General Assembly on Nov. 2.
The session in the Legislative Office Building was the first ever for incoming legislative freshmen under a 2008 law requiring the Office of State Ethics to "establish and administer a program of mandatory training" about state ethics laws -- including the requirement that lawmakers annually make a formal statement of their financial interests and avoid having conflicts of interest and using their offices for private gain.