E-Mail This Article to a Friend Testing the DiMasi myth A new Speaker, plus the return of Clean Elections, and another Boston House seat opens up BY ADAM REILLY

Since SUCCEEDING Tom Finneran as Speaker of the Massachusetts House last September, Sal DiMasi has been largely overshadowed by the ideal he represents. To political optimists, the 59-year-old North End resident will be the great liberalizer of the House, replacing the top-down hierarchy of the Finneran regime with a more egalitarian ethos. And judging from his first day as Speaker — when DiMasi morphed into a kind of perpetual-hugging machine — he’ll do so not with the bland detachment of a good-government technocrat, but with an excess of warmth and fuzziness.

This ideal is about to be put to the test. On January 5, after the Phoenix goes to press, DiMasi’s colleagues will reconfirm him as Speaker. By the end of the month, he’ll have named a new leadership team; responded to his first state-budget proposal from Governor Mitt Romney; shaken up, to some extent, the House rules; and delved into his first full legislative cycle. In the process, DiMasi is sure to make some friends — and, in all likelihood, some enemies as well.

Given the optimism generated by Finneran’s exit and by his own ascent, the new Speaker may have a hard time living up to expectations. Yet few House members seem to be tempering their enthusiasm. Instead, whether talking on or off the record, they’re remarkably bullish about their new leader.

One major reason: the 13-member committee DiMasi appointed last October to review House rules and protocol. Under Finneran, legislation that enjoyed widespread support but that the Speaker disliked — for example, a bill guaranteeing women access to emergency contraception (see "Not So EC After All," News and Features, July 16, 2004) — frequently was allowed to languish in committee rather than move to the floor for a vote. Existing House rules are supposed to prevent this: for example, bills need to be moved out of the Steering and Policy Committee after 30 days. There’s no comparable time limit for the Ways and Means Committee, however — and on Finneran’s watch, out-of-favor legislation was often dumped there and relegated to permanent limbo.

DiMasi’s review committee, which includes veteran Finneran critics Jay Kaufman of Lexington and Byron Rushing of the South End, has met twice so far. When it issues its findings, it could propose a guarantee that bills with a certain level of support make it to the floor. It could suggest taking steps to ease the passage of home-rule legislation, which allows cities and towns to adopt policies that aren’t in place statewide. (During Finneran’s tenure, there was a widespread sense that home-rule petitions from districts represented by dissident legislators tended to move slowly or not at all.) It might also propose creating one or more new committees, revamping the House’s leadership structure, or doing something completely unexpected. For the moment, however, the mere fact that DiMasi has taken a concrete step toward opening up the House is considered auspicious. "I think it’s very important," one veteran legislator says. "It’s not something that’s been done before, in my time in the House. Frankly, under Tommy, the rule changes that came up on a regular basis were more power-consolidation kind of things. I think this is a good move."

Many House members suggest DiMasi’s approach to rules reform points to something bigger: namely, a determination to seek out expert advice before making decisions, rather than relying on his own knowledge and instincts. Late last year, for example, DiMasi hired Christie Hager — a former legislative analyst, attorney, and faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health — as his chief adviser on health care. Hager is a widely respected figure in the health-care community, and legislators and activists alike have applauded her return to Beacon Hill, especially with health care looming as the dominant legislative issue of 2005. (Under Finneran, there was no dedicated health-care expert on staff in the Speaker’s office.) "I thought that was a good move in two ways," says one representative. "It shows DiMasi’s serious about health care. And I think he acknowledged, in that hire, that he’s not an expert. To me, that’s a big step for a powerful leader."

There’s an interesting parallel here between DiMasi and Robert Travaglini, who succeeded Tom Birmingham as president of the state Senate two years ago. Both followed predecessors who had reputations as extremely smart and extremely controlling. Both previously held leadership posts that emphasized social skill — DiMasi as majority leader, Travaglini as majority whip — rather than legislative mastery. Both have personal circumstances that make delegating authority attractive: DiMasi has two young children, while Travaglini has three young kids and also had serious health problems just before assuming his new Senate responsibilities. Both probably would struggle if they tried to do their respective jobs the way their predecessors did. And by accepting this fact rather than fighting it, both have endeared themselves to their fellow members.

In DiMasi’s case, how long will the honeymoon last? Despite his huggable-guy persona and his progressive stance on issues such as gay marriage, where he diverged openly from his boss, DiMasi became known as a heavy during his years on Finneran’s leadership team. The most notorious example came in 2001, during the battle over funding of the voter-approved Clean Elections program, when DiMasi punished six legislators who supported the program by orchestrating funding cutbacks in their districts. The cutbacks were later reversed. Still, time will tell if DiMasi’s new commitment to an open and democratic House is for real. One early indication, according to some legislators, will be whom he taps for his leadership team. John Rogers, the former House Ways and Means chair who also had hoped to succeed Finneran, has already been promised the majority leader’s post. Rogers’s possible replacements include Boston legislators Marie St. Fleur and Eugene O’Flaherty, Ron Mariano of Quincy, and Joe Wagner of Chicopee. Then, of course, there are the sundry other committee chairs to fill. It’s here that DiMasi’s appointments — which should be made at the end of January — will be the most telling.

"If he surrounds himself with people who are perceived as hard-working, easily accessible to the membership, as interested in reinvigorating the committee process, it’s going to create a whole different dynamic," a third legislator says. "If he surrounds himself with people who say, ‘Whatever you say, Mr. Speaker — how high can I jump?’, who aren’t hard-working, who just want to mail it in and get their stipend, that’s going to be a discouraging sign. But every indication is that the opposite is happening."