Rare chance for unity fades for Romney, Democrats

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, an article in yesterday's City & Region section about a dispute between Governor Mitt Romney and the state Senate incorrectly characterized a Globe editorial earlier in the week. The editorial did not criticize the Legislature for failing to consider Romney's proposal to roll back the state income tax.)

The negotiations over a stem cell research bill this week had all the signs of a Prague Spring that would thaw the frigid relationship between Democratic legislative leaders and Republican Governor Mitt Romney. But in a sudden turn, it all fell apart in an acrimonious, finger-pointing conflict.

The incident has Senate Democrats retrenching and privately vowing to push the governor aside as they enact a state budget for the next fiscal year. Romney, meanwhile, displayed some unusual anger as a major political victory, one that would have allowed him to expand his national credentials as a conservative putting the brakes on liberal Massachusetts, slipped through his hands.

The political flare-up occurred Thursday when Senate President Robert E. Travaglini decided to withdraw his offer to push through two of Romney's suggested amendments to the stem cell bill, according to legislators and other sources who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. The legislation would remove any legal ambiguities for scientists to conduct embryonic stem cell research, but Romney had proposed four changes to the bill.

Democratic senators close to Travaglini said he had wanted to extend an olive branch to Romney and agreed to line up support for two of the four amendments that the governor had proposed when he sent the stem cell research back to the Legislature with suggested changes.

''Trav was ready to move in the governor's direction," said one of the lawmakers, who was working on the bill. The governor had called Travaglini to express his concern when the Senate leader was briefly hospitalized earlier this month, a sign relations had warmed between the two.

But the deal fell apart. Senate Democrats portrayed Travaglini as furious over a comment in a Globe editorial Thursday that was attributed to the governor's director of communications, Eric Fehrnstrom. The editorial criticized the Legislature for its funding plans in the budget and not considering Romney's proposal to roll back the state income tax.

The Senate leader's decision to pull back his offer clearly infuriated Romney, who learned about the development just as the Senate was taking up the bill, according to several legislators. The normally unflappable Romney was animated minutes after learning of the rejection when he met with Travaglini's top lieutenant on another matter.

Several Democrats said that Senate majority leader Frederick Berry told a senior legislative source: ''The governor was so upset his hair was shaking." Berry had been waiting in the governor's outer office to meet with Romney about issues concerning the Salem courthouse when he heard the commotion erupt as the staff learned of the breakdown in the deal.

Berry, a Peabody Democrat, told the senior legislative source that he was taken back by the anger the usually mild-mannered governor displayed at their meeting, which was supposed to focus on the courthouse. ''It was a governor he had not seen before," the source said.

In an interview yesterday, Romney laughed at Berry's characterization, saying he respects the Senate majority leader and described him as a ''reliable and good man."

He said he was upset over the reaction by Travaglini and the senators to the Globe editorial, which he noted had to be clarified by the editorial page.

''What I was concerned about was a reaction to an error," he said.

Fehrnstrom was blamed by the lawmakers for using a proposed increase in state legislative staffers' pay as an example of what he said was a Democratic ''spending splurge." A Globe editorial had made that link, when, in fact, Fehrnstrom was speaking about a legislative proposal to undo a 2003 increase in state workers' health insurance contributions. The Globe clarified the next day that he was not talking about the legislative staffers' pay raises, an issue that legislators take as extremely sensitive.

''I was very upset there was a misinterpretation of a key fact," Romney said, in describing his demeanor. ''Any time there is a rejection of something we work on very hard, we're disappointed."

The two proposed amendments by Romney that Travaglini was offering to accept would have limited what women can be paid for donating their eggs and to strengthen a ban on fertilizing eggs for research. The governor supports stem cell research, but opposes the bill's provision that allows for the cloning of humans cells that can be used in the research.

As the senators took up the bill Thursday afternoon, Brian Lees, the Senate minority leader who, sources said, had helped broker the agreement, told the governor's senior staff that the deal was off. In a tense meeting, the Republican lawmaker chastised the aides for the public comments, saying the remarks had killed any chance of the Democrats accepting the amendments, sources said.

Romney said he was not aware of any deal that was brokered. Lees did not return calls made to his office yesterday. Travaglini declined to comment.

The governor said yesterday that he is sincere in his efforts to reach out to the Democratic majority. He said he has made a consistent effort to be respectful of the Democratic lawmakers since the fall election, when he and the state GOP had mounted well-funded but failed efforts to unseat a number of legislators.

Romney said he has purposely made sure he and his aides did not take any ''cheap shots" or refer to ''something personal" about members of the House and Senate.