A new view on the office
When Robert DeLeo was a newly-elected state representative from Winthrop, he went in to meet with the speaker of the house, Charlie Flaherty.
"I told him, 'I'm not asking for a nice office, I don't want a special parking space, I just want the opportunity to be heard, and I'd like to serve on a committee of substance,' " DeLeo recalled yesterday. "He took me up on that. He gave me a not-so-good office with no windows, and a lousy parking spot."
As the new speaker, DeLeo now has one of the best views in the State House. But he is also taking over during a traumatic time for state government. The former ways and means chairman is an expert on the state budget, which he will need to deal with a deficit that some estimates place as high as $4 billion next year.
DeLeo's low-key, cautious style is a marked contrast from his recent predecessors, big personalities all. If he can be said to have a public persona, it is as a studious, conciliatory man who has kept his head down for nearly two decades while quietly building the relationships that drove his unlikely ascent to the speaker's chair last week.
Less than a week into the job, DeLeo has already signaled his support for slot machines at racetracks as a quick means of raising revenue. He concedes that he is influenced by the presence of two racetracks in his district, whose owners and employees have clamored for slots for years.
Casino gambling, which the last speaker considered a horrible idea, is also likely to find new life under DeLeo.
"Slots or casinos aren't going to be the end-all in getting Massachusetts out of an economic downturn," he said. "But I see slots, in particular, as a quicker way to raise revenue."
The issue that seems to touch him most personally is his longstanding advocacy for special-needs children and their families. It might be the one issue on which he routinely bucked Thomas Finneran, another former speaker. Funding for special needs is one issue that comes under close scrutiny in every budget crisis.
DeLeo said he was drawn to the issue because it affected a population with little political power. "I hear story upon story about kids trying to get services, and schools and districts, for the purposes of saving money, not giving those kids opportunities."
Julia Landau of Massachusetts Advocates for Children said DeLeo was one of the group's few reliable allies in the House during a time in the 1990s when funding for special education was under constant attack.
"He just demonstrated truly extraordinary and unwavering support for kids with disabilities," Landau said. "He worked literally night and day to remove barriers and ensure equal opportunity even when it wasn't easy to do so. He's always been someone who would try to do what was right."
In the pecking order of government, the difference between a chairman and the speaker is substantial. Even as a State House veteran of nearly two decades, DeLeo said he has already noticed a difference in how he is perceived. But he has had a similar experience before.
"When I became chairman of ways and means, I noticed a major change," he said. "People laughed at my jokes a little more, they told me I looked like I was losing weight when I was actually gaining weight.
"What I'm finding now is that people pick up a little more on what I say," he said. "I find that the microscope is a little bit stronger here as speaker."
In keeping with his unassuming nature, DeLeo declined to offer even mild criticism of his predecessor, Sal DiMasi, or even to say how his tenure might be different.
But there is no ignoring the need to escape the legacy that three speakers in a row have left under fire.
He compared himself to the once-cursed Red Sox.
"I want to reverse the curse," he said.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
