DiMasi emerging as top power on Beacon Hill

When Salvatore F. DiMasi was elected to lead the House 2 1/2 years ago, his colleagues knew him as a top enforcer for outgoing Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, a backslapping jokester who understood how to work the floor. The press knew him as a behind-the-scenes player who preferred not to make news. The public hardly knew him at all.

Now, with a freshman governor weakened by early stumbles and a new Senate president finding her footing, the wisecracking North Ender is making a serious play to become the dominant power on Beacon Hill.

Newly confident in his image as a speaker of substance -- a reputation he fortified last year with his leadership on a landmark health care reform bill -- DiMasi is pursuing sweeping green energy legislation, preempting Governor Deval Patrick on one of his signature campaign issues.

Though a longtime liberal, DiMasi has grabbed headlines, and made himself an unlikely ally of big business, by opposing or crit icizing most of the new governor's business tax proposals. He has also publicly admonished Patrick for some of his early follies, making it clear that he is not going to be an apologist for any politician who makes rookie mistakes -- even if the blunderer is the first Democratic governor in 16 years.

"Right now, nobody's willing to mess with Sal, and nobody's willing to do anything without having Sal involved," said a State House observer who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the speaker's influence. "He's the biggest of the big honchos up there right now, and he loves it."

The question now is how long that will hold true. Recently, the re energized governor invited the speaker and Senate President Therese Murray to join him on stage to present his $1 billion biotechnology plan, but asked only Murray to join him in signing an opinion piece that appeared in the Globe -- a signal, perhaps, that the two novice leaders on Beacon Hill may be forming their own alliance. DiMasi acknowledged, when pressed, that he was not happy about being left out.

"Since I endorsed it, I thought I should have been part of it," he said.

An administration source found this reaction bewildering. DiMasi, the source said, was well aware that the governor was working with Murray on his stem cell initiative, an issue that had long been a Senate priority. The governor's office, the source added, had pledged to help DiMasi with his energy bill.

The episode is typical of the uneasy tension that has developed between DiMasi and Patrick over the last few months.

The governor's staff feels stung, insiders say, that DiMasi has responded to many of the governor's major policy announcements with faint praise, caution, or outright opposition.

Days after Patrick unveiled his plan to reap new revenue by closing so-called loopholes in the corporate tax code, DiMasi told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce that the plan would be dead on arrival in the House.

The initial House budget proceeded to steamroll over several of Patrick's other budget priorities. Some were restored during the budget debate, but that same week one of DiMasi's top lieutenants circulated a letter asking Patrick to reconsider his decision to fire the commissioner of the Department of Mental Retardation , which Patrick's team saw as an affront to the governor's authority over the executive branch.

Those who know DiMasi well say the speaker likes Patrick.

At a small luncheon arranged by media consultant George Regan at the Boston Harbor Hotel recently, DiMasi offered elaborate praise when asked about the governor's shaky start.

"He's one of the most charismatic speakers I've ever seen. He's intelligent. He has a sense of commitment and engagement and cooperation with us that we haven't seen in a long, long time," he said.

But DiMasi, a 28-year veteran of the House who extols the virtues of the institution and its members, also suggested Patrick had been under the misimpression that government moves as fast as the governor makes decisions.

"This is democracy," he said at the luncheon. "It's very slow. It's not like running a company."

And though DiMasi has at times said he thought Patrick was unfairly pummeled in the media for his fancy state car and expensive office furnishings, the speaker hasn't been able to resist taking a few shots at the governor .

In an interview on New England Cable News earlier this spring, DiMasi -- who as a tenderfoot speaker smarted at media accounts of his affection for golfing and faraway legislative conferences -- attributed the lapses to inexperience.

"We don't go out and have flashy cars. . . . We don't buy curtains," DiMasi told host Jim Braude with a chuckle. "My office has the same curtains there for about 25 years, my furniture, my floor is a mess, but I haven't changed anything because I know there is criticism coming. He didn't know that, that's the problem."

Tall and affable, DiMasi, 61 , gambols about the State House with a mustachioed smile and a joke for everyone, which can make him difficult to read.

His membership seems largely content with his leadership, and his committee chairmen say he is accessible but not autocratic.

But there is no question that DiMasi is ultimately in charge. Earlier this year, he stripped Representative James Marzilli of his leadership position, a move widely seen as DiMasi's way of punishing the Arlington lawmaker for filing a rival energy bill after DiMasi decided to make it his signature issue this year.

"The speaker appoints the chairs of his committees based on merit -- nothing else," DiMasi's spokesman, David Guarino, said in an e-mailed response.

Many State House watchers believe DiMasi is often underestimated. He agrees.

"In my opinion, people didn't understand . . . who I was," he said. "I love to be with people, and have fun, and joke. . . . But that's only one part of me, see. . . . People may not understand the substance of what I can do on the issues."

Representative Patricia A. Walrath , the House chair woman of the Health Care Financing Committee , recalls that DiMasi's understanding of the complexities of the healthcare bill was a significant asset during six months of negotiations with the Senate.

"When push came to shove, towards the end, the speaker would say, 'Why would you want that?' and give a whole series of reasons why it wasn't good," she said. "And he'd win every time."

DiMasi is what lobbyist and former North End city councilor Paul Scapicchio calls "an exclamation point" on the story of the old North End -- the working class, Italian-American neighborhood where everybody knew everybody and three generations often lived under the same roof.

"He's the last politician that will have been formed by the life lessons he learned there, and reached the pinnacles of his career owing to, and coming from, that neighborhood," Scapicchio said.

The child of a factory worker and bartender, DiMasi grew up in a tenement and said he had to walk two blocks to get a hot shower.

He likes to talk about how he had "100 mothers," with all the women in the neighborhood keeping a close eye on one another's children.

He spent summers at "caddie camp" in northern New Hampshire, where he and about 40 other boys lived in a barracks, worked as caddies for wealthy tourists, and reveled in fresh air. It was where DiMasi learned to play golf.

A standout student-athlete at Christopher Columbus High School , he worked his way through Boston College and Suffolk University Law School , and then became a lawyer, maintaining his practice until he became speaker.

Over the years, he has kept his friends close. Until he took the speakership, he said, he went away on a golfing trip with his old caddie camp buddies every year. He's a regular figure in the neighborhood, where he is simply "Sal," and can still be seen walking his wife's small, white dog Stogie down Commercial Street at night.

Despite the cultural influence of the Catholic Church in the North End of his youth, DiMasi has been one of the strongest supporters of gay rights in the House for a quarter-century.

In 2002, a year before a high court decision made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts, DiMasi led the charge against a proposed constitutional ban, despite Finneran's strong support for the measure.

"We had 25 legislators packed in his office," said Arline Isaacson , chairwoman of the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus . "He served them all cannolis and we planned the strategy to defeat the amendment in 2002. He has been absolutely wonderful."

Asked where his passion for the issue comes from, DiMasi recalled how his grandfather read the Constitution every day, and how he marveled over a country where everyone had civil rights.

"That was my speech on gay marriage, I said, 'I'm here to defend my grandfather's Constitution,' " he said.

In the coming weeks, his new influence on Beacon Hill could be tested as the Legislature prepares for a final showdown on a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

With opponents of the ban holding a slight edge and several of the speaker's top lieutenants siding against him on this issue, DiMasi's power of persuasion could prove pivotal.

The issue could also shape DiMasi's relationship with the governor and the Senate president. Last week, he made an unscheduled appearance with Patrick and Murray at a news conference hosted by gay marriage supporters.

Hands joined over their heads, the three leaders vowed to work together to defeat a proposed amendment to ban gay marriage.

Steve Crosby , dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston who served on Patrick's transition team, said the three leaders ' relationship is still unfolding.

But DiMasi, he said, has shown he is not likely to protect the governor -- much less cede power to him.

"Probably the speaker, like a lot of other people in Massachusetts, is watching to see how the governor and his evolving leadership team play their political cards and dance this elaborate choreography," he said. "If a vacuum is created, then Sal DiMasi is the man to fill it."

Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.