SCOT LEHIGH
Old boy SalWHEN I BUMPED into Sal DiMasi a while back, the potentate of Prince Street flashed his 100-watt grin and posed this question: Can't you ever write anything nice about me?
On a day when DiMasi will celebrate his victory in a bloodless behind-the-scenes battle by becoming speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, that seems only fair. So how about this? Sal DiMasi is one charming rascal. So charming that he seems to be possessed of the talent that made The Shadow such a wily adversary: The ability to cloud men's minds. How else to explain the way DiMasi has gulled the State House reformers into believing that he will, at 59, morph into a speaker committed to an open, inclusive legislative process? For years the House has been chafing under the iron hand of Tom Finneran, whose tight management style usurped the power and prerogative of the rank and file. To know what the House was going to do, nine times out of 10, all you needed to find out was what Tom Finneran wanted. Now, that wasn't always a bad thing. Finneran was an exceedingly bright fellow, a fiscal disciplinarian with enough of an independent streak not to fold like a cheap lawn chair under the demands of the Democratic Party's various interest groups. But it made things frustrating indeed for the average state rep, who thought that winning election to the Legislature should actually mean having a little influence over public policy instead of being reduced to impotent fuming over what Speaker Finneran was doing in your name. Why, some reformers got so fed up that they even contemplated running for speaker themselves in the last month or so. But because discretion is the better part of legislative valor -- and because it often leads to bigger offices, choicer committee assignments, and more aides -- now they've cast their lot with DiMasi instead. As one representative explains, there were 30 to 35 members willing to stick together and vote for a reformer, but as their various possible candidates opted out, the group decided it was better to throw in with the more liberal DiMasi than run the chance that John Rogers, the conservative Ways and Means chairman, might become speaker. "Sal is saying all the right things," this person reported. Such as? "He is going to be inclusive, we are going to have debates. He is saying he is not going to be Tom Finneran." Now, that's one impressive sell, because to buy it, you also have to buy this notion: Not only will the new speaker not be Tom Finneran, he will no longer be Sal DiMasi either. Which is another way of saying, let's not forget who DiMasi actually is: the ultimate old boy insider. Back in 1990, when The Boston Globe did a Spotlight Team investigation of politically connected attorneys whose State House influence often seemed to tip the scales of state-court justice in favor of their clients, DiMasi was prominent on the list. In 1999, the Spotlight Team documented DiMasi's behind-the-scenes effort to strip affordable housing resale restrictions from a North End condo complex where his brother owned a unit. And, of course, he has been a principal force blocking any attempt to reform the gold-plated Boston Municipal Court. As for open debate? Well, back in 2001, when some representatives tried to honor the will of the voters by voting to keep funding for the Clean Elections Law, it was DiMasi who led the retaliatory charge against them. A day after warning the dissidents that "you're not out of the woods," he pushed through an amendment slashing funding for programs and projects -- community policing, teen counseling, swimming pool repairs and the like -- in the districts of six representatives who had fought the leadership's Clean Elections coup de grace. That bit of bullying was reversed only after members complained vociferously to Finneran. When I asked Finneran about it back then, the speaker contended that he had been so embarrassed by DiMasi's behavior that he had sent a message "that that was never to occur again." Did Finneran really reprimand DiMasi, or was it merely a case of being shocked, shocked to find his leadership team engaging in strong-arm tactics? Hard to say. But this much is certain: DiMasi's bully-boy conduct hardly revealed him as the sort of open, easygoing figure he has promised to be as speaker. So has the old legislative leopard really changed his spots? Call me a skeptic, but despite DiMasi's charm offensive, I'll believe it when I see it.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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