DiMasi confident he'll again lead House
Facing little open dissent in the House, Salvatore F. DiMasi yesterday predicted he will easily win a third term as speaker when the members return to Beacon Hill tomorrow for the start of the legislative session.
DiMasi made his confident statement after scoring a partial victory in his legal skirmishing with the Ethics Commission over records. The commission agreed to drop a lawsuit it brought to compel him to turn over documents after the speaker agreed to turn over some records, but not others.
"I expect to have the overwhelming support of the vast majority of the members," said DiMasi. "I feel very good about it."
DiMasi, who has served as speaker since late 2004, continues to face an ethics controversy involving his close friends and associates that has spawned criminal investigations by state and federal authorities, and re views by the state inspector general and secretary of state, as well as the Ethics Commission investigation.
Several House members have said they are deeply troubled by the controversy and are torn over whether to vote for DiMasi. But only two members have publicly said they will not support him.
Yesterday Representative Thomas J. Calter, a Democrat from Kingston, said he will vote present when the election is held. He will join Representative David M. Torrisi, the House chairman of the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, who last week said he decided after agonizing for months that "it's time for new leadership in the House."
Many members did not return phone calls yesterday.
Representative Brian P. Wallace, Democrat of South Boston, predicted 15 or 20 members will vote present - "all for different reasons."
"I'm voting for DiMasi," he said. "He's a friend and he's been good to me. Whenever I had any bills and I wanted to talk to him, he has listened. Under his leadership, we've gotten a lot of our budget items passed."
Two key representatives - House Ways and Means Chairman Robert A. DeLeo and House Majority Leader John H. Rogers - have been campaigning to succeed DiMasi, but both have said they would run only if he stepped down.
Martin J. Walsh, a Rogers supporter and Democrat from Boston, said he will vote for DiMasi because "a vote of no confidence makes no sense to me."
"The biggest problem facing us is the budget," he said. "I know there are allegations swirling around the Legislature and the speaker, in particular, but at this point we need to get the state's financial problems under control. We need to be unified and do what we were elected to do - get through these difficult times."
State and federal authorities are investigating payments made to DiMasi friends and associates by special interests seeking favorable legislation or contracts on Beacon Hill.
One of them, accountant Richard Vitale, was indicted Dec. 18, accused by Attorney General Martha Coakley of failing to report $60,000 he received from an association of ticket brokers to lobby for their legislation.
Vitale was scheduled to be arraigned yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court, but the arraignment was delayed until next week after Vitale did not appear. His attorney, Martin Weinberg, had filed a motion requesting that Vitale's appearance be waived, but prosecutors objected. Prosecutors had planned to file a statement of their case against Vitale at the court session.
DiMasi has been calling lawmakers and meeting with them in his office, trying to shore up support for his reelection as speaker. DiMasi asserted that the commission was seeking documents that he said are protected under a provision of the state constitution that says the Legislature's internal deliberations cannot be used as the basis of any prosecution.
Yesterday, he said the Ethics Commission, by agreeing to dismiss the suit, had agreed the documents were protected. But the agreement entered in Suffolk Superior Court said that the argument about legislative immunity was rendered moot by his willingness to produce some records. 