Speaker holds fundraiser during budget deliberations

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

Just as the legislative leadership is putting the final touches on the $27 billion state budget plan for next year, House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and his team are asking lobbyists and special interests to pony up for the speaker's political action committee.

DiMasi is hosting its annual fund-raising reception tonight at the politically connected law firm, Goulston & Storrs, where donors will mingle on a patio looking out over Boston Harbor while sipping wine, pecking at fancy hors d'oeuvres - and ingratiating themselves to the speaker and his leadership team.

"They put on a full court press,'' said one lobbyist who was headed over to the party, noting that he and his fellow lobbyists have been under the gun from DiMasi's crew to make donations to Speaker DiMasi's Committee for a Democratic House.

At the event last year, the Beacon Hill lobbying community, business executives, lawyers, and political hangers-on donated $71,125 to the committee, which DiMasi uses to support legislative candidates. The committee's current bank account is pretty anemic. It started off the year with just $25,000.

The committee sent out as many as 4,000 invitations this year and hopes to raise as much as it did last year.

DiMasi's aides said today that he would not comment on his fundraising activities.