Legislative Leadership, Quick Reactions

Published Feb 12 2009, 05:03 PM by David S. Bernstein

New Speaker Bob DeLeo announced his leadership team and committee assignments today, and Therese Murray came out with her new assignments. I don't have time to say much about it right now, but a few quick observations:

--The NEXT Speaker fight shapes up to be Charley Murphy vs. Jim Vallee (assuming DeLeo lasts a few years at least); anyone else who wants a piece of it better start plotting now.

--Sweet of DeLeo to let Petrolati keep his pro tem postion. Sweet but dumb. If Petrolati gets sucked further into the ACE Ticket scandal, you've got "DeLeo's first big misstep" stories.

--Young blood leading some big House committees. Look around, there aren't that many Dem reps under age 45 with a couple of terms under their belt to choose from, and DeLeo's got them running Ways & Means, Econ Development, Judiciary, Third Reading, Higher Ed, Telecom, and others; plus the new majority leader and two division chairs.

--Funny how quick yesterday's freshmen move up, when six new senators get elected at once. Boston's own Anthony Petruccelli has a nice get, chairing the Environment Committee, and Anthony Galluccio of Cambridge will chair higher ed.

--I'm not sure that Tourism Chair is the platform for Sonia Chang-Diaz to make things up with Roxbury's disgruntled.