Posted on 04/29/2007 5:38:28 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Meet Senor Sal DiMasi, the best amigo lobbyists ever had on Beacon Hill.
Senor Sal is the speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He is the hack hombre whose members waste away in Margaritaville as the pesos are changing hands behind closed doors.
It is a muy tough job, being speaker. When you take the job, the feds immediately empanel a new grand jury, on spec. The boss of the Gambino crime family has a better chance of avoiding indictment than the boss of the Mass. House. Still, Senor Sal dreams that he will be the first speaker in the last 17 years not to be turned into a pinata by the G-men.
But this is a time of maximum danger at the State House, as the payroll patriots cobble together next year’s $27 billion state budget. Bandidos lurk everywhere.
Theoretically, all 200 members of the Legislature have a say in what happens, but they get greedy, especially after they’ve been plied with tequila by local advocates. They start making unreasonable demands, like a court officer’s job for their brother.
So Senor Sal keeps them occupied in the traditional way. He makes sure his rank-and-file reps are quaffing many more than dos Dos Equis. The m.o. is to keep them guzzling until they finally drift off into a siesta, while Senor Sal and the lobbyists have themselves a fiesta. Can someone say TOGA, TOGA, TOGA!?!
Forget Dean Wormer’s admonition. Fat, drunk and stupid is a perfect way to go through life, at least life at the State House.
With the budget in play, this is also the season for all pols to schedule their times. To make sure the lobbyists pony up, the reps usually put the name of the speaker or one of his caporegimes on the invitation. This week’s embarrassment for Senor Sal was the Mexican-themed shakedown, er fund-raiser, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Callahan of Sutton in Worcester County, home of the state’s most overserved solons. She used to work at the hackerama known as UMass Medical Center, and would you care to guess if her husband is in the public or the Dreaded Private Sector?
Maintenance foreman for the Worcester Housing Authority, or was, as recently as 2005. His name is Michael Callahan and he is not to be confused - though he probably wouldn’t mind if he was - with another hack’s hack, Governor’s Councilor Michael Callahan, formerly of the State Racing Commission.
Jennifer’s South of the Border-themed time on Wednesday evening was held at the 21st Amendment, the old Golden Dome, where one of her Worcester County colleagues once left a satchel of cash and checks under a barstool as he reeled out the door.
The solons used to throw a lot of these parties at Anthony’s Pier 4. But Northern Avenue is not quite walking distance from Beacon Hill, and at all costs you don’t want these tosspot solons in their cars, loaded. So nowadays most parties take place within staggering distance of the State House.
Rep. Callahan’s party, complete with a mariachi band, came on the same day Senor Sal made front-page news. He was busted for firing one of his aides 11 days after she reached the 20-year mark on the public mammary. That meant that instead of a $4,600 pension she now qualifies for $20,000 a year
Muchos gracias, Senor Sal!
The problem is, this is the sort of thing that got Sal’s two immediate predecessors into such trouble. You do this often enough and the feds will be tracking you like Black Jack Pershing went after Pancho Villa.
God forbid you end up like the last speaker, Tommy Taxes, stripped of his pension, his law license, his $416,000 lobbying job. To avoid such a fate, Senor Sal tries to stay under the radar screen. Less golf, no more mob clients like Joe Yerardi and Vinnie the Animal.
It’s easy for Senor Sal to remain incognito. He represents a theme park called the North End. When he was first elected in 1978, it actually was a neighborhood. Now it’s a restaurant district, owned by childhood friends of Sal who now live in Medford. The biggest voting bloc left in the North End is the valet parkers.
Watch out Senor Sal! Los federales are everywhere. First it was Good Time Charlie Flaherty, then Tommy Taxes. Remember the old saying in Old Mexico.
What happens twice happens thrice.
Howie Carr column ping
Unfortunately, my home state of MA is one of the few states in the country that could fully staff it’s Legislature with living, former legislators who have served time for felonies. What a total cesspool.
and they could run their own radio station too!
Yup...
That doesn't even cover it!! LOL! What about the convicted felon doing the morning drive? Unfreakin' believable!
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