E-Mail This Article to a Friend The honeymooners Two men control Massachusetts. Can their cozy relationship survive this fall’s legislative session? BY ADAM REILLY

Sal DiMasi and Robert Travaglini run this state. Governor Mitt Romney had clout when he was elected in 2002, but lost most of it two years later when his push to elect Republican lawmakers flopped. Now, as Romney preps and preens for his imminent presidential run, he’s politically impotent here at home. Which means that, heading into the Massachusetts legislature’s fall session — in which health-care reform, economic stimulus, and the death penalty will all be debated — it’s DiMasi, the Speaker of the House, and Travaglini, the president of the Senate, who are firmly in control of the state’s direction.

If you’re a political progressive, this could be a very good thing. DiMasi’s predecessor, Tom Finneran, was a social conservative who opposed Clean Elections, gay marriage, stem-cell research, and emergency contraception; when Finneran disagreed with pending legislation, he frequently prevented it from coming up for a vote. But since DiMasi succeeded Finneran (who resigned amid a federal perjury investigation last September), the climate on Beacon Hill has shifted dramatically, with the House — and the legislature as a whole — shifting to the left.

Consider: in recent months, the legislature crafted a bill to boost stem-cell research, then emphatically overruled Romney’s veto; passed another bill to expand access to Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, and overrode the governor yet again; and killed a proposed state-constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages while authorizing civil unions. If Finneran were still Speaker, it’s likely that none of this would have happened. But DiMasi and Travaglini are united by more than their shared Italo-American ancestry and overlapping districts. Both men also seem to share a generally liberal stance on social issues — a commonality that, in the long run, could shake up the traditional House-Senate paradigm, in which the lower body acts as the social and fiscal brake on its more liberal counterpart.

Still, whether DiMasi and Travaglini will be able to capitalize on their shared opportunity is an open question. This is due, in part, to the different arcs of their careers. Travaglini has run the Senate for more than two and a half years, and boasts some big accomplishments (e.g., outmaneuvering Finneran during the gay-marriage debate in last year’s Constitutional Convention). After being initially dismissed by some political observers as a back-slapping insider, he’s shown himself to be a savvy and substantive politician.

DiMasi, however, is still carving out his own political identity. A year into his tenure, certain aspects of the Speaker’s identity seem clear. He’s a social liberal. He wants committee chairs to set their own agendas, rather than following top-down orders. Unlike Finneran, he believes in open debate, and actually allows his membership to oppose him publicly. (For example, several members of DiMasi’s leadership team voted against him, without repercussions, when the House took up a recent tax-loophole bill.) He has a strong interest in the arts: witness the House’s pending economic-development legislation, which treats arts and culture as an economic driver. And, in his quest to eliminate "outside sections" — nonessential budget items — from the state budget, DiMasi has succeeded where previous Speakers failed: the budget for fiscal year (FY) 2006 included 34 of these non-budgetary items, compared with more than 428 in FY ’05.

So far, so good. But despite these early successes, the Speaker hasn’t escaped criticism. Back in March, some state representatives were already griping about what they considered the sluggish pace in the House (see "Grinding to a Halt," News and Features, March 25). The complaints have persisted, at least in some quarters: last Sunday, the Globe reported that lobbyists and legislators from both chambers are "grumbling" about the amount of work still to be done — with health-care reform and economic stimulus front and center.

The paper also suggested that tensions are building between DiMasi and Travaglini as a result. Meanwhile, in recent weeks, both House and Senate sources have complained to the Phoenix that DiMasi is moving too slowly and lacks a decisive plan of action.