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If the House’s political direction remains unclear, so does the value of competence and talent in the DiMasi era. The promotions of Rushing, Kaufman, and Marzilli are promising. The appointments of DeLeo and Petrolati are not. Petrolati, who managed the House’s illegal 2001 redistricting plan for Finneran (see "Back to the Drawing Board?", News and Features, November 7, 2003), is either dim, ill-informed, or a very bad liar: during a deposition in the redistricting case, he professed ignorance about the geographical relationship between Charlestown and Chelsea, and said he didn’t know if Suffolk County had large Latino or African-American populations. Factor in the ongoing federal-grand-jury probe into whether Finneran perjured himself in testimony about the redistricting (see "Speaker on the Spot," News and Features, May 14, 2004), and Petrolati seems a highly questionable choice.

If Petrolati weren’t a friend of DiMasi’s (the two men frequently dine together in the North End), he probably wouldn’t have his new job, which comes with a $15,000 annual bonus. The good news — such as it is — is that many legislators think Petrolati’s main job will be keeping tabs on Rogers, who vied with DiMasi for the Speaker’s job when Finneran announced his resignation last fall. "I think we’ve all been assuming the Speaker pro tem is essentially there as a baby sitter for John Rogers," says one legislator. "He won’t have to do any work. He’ll just have to keep an eye on John."

DeLeo’s appointment is more perplexing, primarily because the relatively obscure legislator has been tapped for such an important post. "That’s really a mystery to me," says a colleague. "He’s extremely personable, which is good, but I don’t see him as an enforcer type — which could be a problem, because the first word that comes out of the Ways and Means chairman’s mouth is ‘no.’ I don’t know how comfortable he’ll be in that role." Another lawmaker is more pessimistic. "This is a guy who’s notorious for not returning phone calls, for having little depth," the second legislator says. "For the life of me, I cannot understand what [DiMasi] was thinking when he did that."

One possibility, which was widely discussed earlier this week, is that DeLeo’s appointment may herald a shift in the job description for Ways and Means chair. In both the House and the Senate, Ways and Means chairs traditionally have been skilled, highly knowledgeable legislators with a knack for establishing priorities and driving the budget process forward. Since his appointment, however, DiMasi has promised to reinvigorate the House’s moribund committee structure; if he follows through, some power inevitably will devolve from Ways and Means to the other committees. Furthermore, DiMasi is assembling a formidable stable of advisers inside the Speaker’s office, including Christie Hager (a former legislative analyst and a Harvard School of Public Health faculty member) and Judith Laster (a former state assistant attorney general), who are offering counsel on health care and energy/environmental issues, respectively. "He’s hired quite a number of people to do work right out of the Speaker’s office, which you might normally expect to come out of Ways and Means," says one State House insider. "I don’t know anything about DeLeo, and chances are a lot of people don’t. And that may say something about the stature of Ways and Means changing." (Kim Haberlin, DiMasi’s spokesperson, insists no such change is under way. "It’s the Speaker’s practice to hire the best and brightest," she says. "Ways and Means is an important, essential committee, and will continue to be.")

DeLeo may yet prove his doubters wrong. One advocate suggests that his votes under Finneran were pragmatic rather than ideological in nature — that he assumed a conservative identity to get ahead in a conservative House, and will move leftward if he knows it’s permissible. Bear in mind, too, that few people expected much of Bob Travaglini when he became Senate president in 2003. Two years later, he’s the dominant figure on Beacon Hill.

For the time being, however, DeLeo is a question mark. For that matter, so is the DiMasi House as a whole. Will former committee chairs who had backed Rogers’s bid for Speaker, and who lost their posts this week, make things difficult for DiMasi and his lieutenants? Will emboldened House progressives be satisfied with the moral victories they won Tuesday, or will they press for more-substantive gains? Will tensions arise between DiMasi’s liberal and conservative supporters — and if so, what will the consequences be? By giving a little something to each of the House’s various factions, DiMasi has pleased everyone a little bit. He’s also left everyone wanting more. Who gets it, and who doesn’t, will dictate the direction of the upcoming legislative session.

Adam Reilly can be reached at areilly[a]phx.com