E-Mail This Article to a Friend Speaker on the spot What Finneran knew about the redistricting plan and when he knew it could determine the once invincible pol’s future in the House BY ADAM REILLY

HOUSE SPEAKER Tom Finneran hasn’t been indicted for perjury in connection with the 2001 redistricting of Boston’s districts in the state House of Representatives, and it may be months before US Attorney Michael Sullivan decides whether to move forward with the case. But one sign Finneran has a serious problem with potentially painful consequences is his recent hiring of Richard Egbert, a high-powered defense lawyer with a relish for tough cases. He’s also retained the well-connected public-relations consultant Ray Howell, who adroitly navigated the back corridors of Beacon Hill as press secretary for former governor Bill Weld.

Last week, Egbert — who usually keeps his act in court — took the unusual step of going public. In a much-discussed press conference, he argued that Finneran’s description of his own involvement in the redistricting process had been misrepresented by the three-judge panel that mandated the creation of a new redistricting map earlier this year — a misrepresentation, he asserted, that the press has uncritically disseminated. Maybe Egbert, who recently represented former Providence mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci and former superior-court judge Maria Lopez, has learned that what happens outside the courtroom can be as important as what happens inside. Or maybe the stakes for Finneran are higher than most people realize.

SINCE 1996, when he used an alliance with House Republicans to overtake front-runner Richard Voke and become Speaker of the House, Finneran has been regarded as something of an elemental political force. The Speaker, both admirers and detractors will tell you, is very smart. He is controlling and vindictive. And he usually gets what he wants.

Of course, Finneran’s patina of invincibility had faded a bit of late. Governor Mitt Romney and Senate president Robert Travaglini have proved to be worthy political counterweights, and recent setbacks — last year on a proposed pay increase for his key House lieutenants, this year on gay marriage — have made it clear that Finneran’s power isn’t absolute. But it took a still-unfolding investigation by the US Attorney’s Office to make him look truly vulnerable.

Here’s a quick overview of Finneran’s current plight. In February of this year, a three-judge US District Court panel ruled that the new legislative districts created by the House Redistricting Committee in 2001 illegally diluted African-American voting strength and would have to be redrawn (see "Back to the Drawing Board?", News and Features, November 7, 2003). In a footnote, the judges singled out Finneran’s claims of minimal involvement with the redistricting process as particularly dubious. Then, in a letter dated March 5, the government-watchdog group Common Cause Massachusetts asked Sullivan’s office to examine whether Finneran had perjured himself in his November 14, 2003, trial testimony or March 28, 2003, deposition.

On March 8, Common Cause representatives met with Sullivan. On March 9, Common Cause held a press conference urging the US attorney to investigate Finneran. The next day, a grand-jury subpoena reportedly seeking documents linking Finneran to the redistricting process arrived in the office of State Representative Thomas Petrolati (D-Ludlow), who chaired the House Redistricting Committee. (Egbert and Thomas Hoopes, the attorney retained by the Redistricting Committee to handle the grand jury’s document requests, declined to comment on the subpoena’s contents.) A little more than a month later, on April 16, Boston’s two daily papers reported that a federal investigation of the redistricting process was under way. Finneran, it seemed, was in trouble.

Egbert’s press conference last Monday was supposed to correct this impression. He focused on one part of one sentence in the three-judge panel’s footnote — namely, the suggestion that Finneran "denied any involvement in the redistricting process." This characterization was "simply wrong," Egbert argued; for example, Finneran had acknowledged occasional exchanges with Petrolati and several conversations with his former Boston Latin School classmate Lawrence DiCara, an attorney hired to assist with redistricting.

But whatever Egbert gained by highlighting the judges’ imprecision may have been offset by his unwillingness to address other significant aspects of the case — an unwillingness that was duly noted in the media. For example, Finneran said in his trial testimony that he did not see any redistricting plan before October 18, 2001, the day the House Redistricting Committee first presented a plan to the House membership, and that he did not know the plan’s contents before that date. But Carol Cleven, a former Republican representative from Chelmsford, has said that Finneran met with her on October 17, 2001, and warned her that her district was being radically altered. Ruth Balser and Kay Khan, Democratic reps from Newton who would have been forced to run against each other if the October 18 plan had been implemented, have reported a similar conversation with the Speaker on October 17. By skirting these details — and bringing his hiring, as well as Howell’s, to the attention of the press — Egbert fueled the growing sense that Finneran is under the gun.

"The event did not go well," says one long-time State House observer. "Everyone I’ve talked to since then who didn’t think Finneran was in trouble now says, ‘Hey, he must really be in trouble.’ It was supposed to stop the bleeding, and instead it ripped the wound open." Another Beacon Hill insider is even blunter. "The fact that he hired Richie Egbert makes me think he’s going to get indicted," he says.