Massachusetts Is Getting New Speaker
By KATIE ZEZIMA, NYTimes on the Web, September 28, 2004
BOSTON, Sept. 27 -- The speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Thomas M. Finneran, who is under federal investigation in a redistricting case, said Monday that he would resign his position effective Tuesday afternoon.
Mr. Finneran, a conservative Democrat from Boston known for wielding tremendous power, will become president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, a trade group, on Oct. 4.
The 54-year-old speaker will nonetheless finish his term as a legislator. He is up for re-election in November, and if he wins, a spokeswoman said, he will ask to be replaced through a special election next year.
Mr. Finneran, a lawyer, was elected to the legislature in 1979 and became speaker in 1996.
He has fought for years against restoring the death penalty to Massachusetts, opposes abortion and in March helped shepherd through a constitutional amendment, still requiring a second passage and then a public vote, that would ban same-sex marriage and create civil unions instead.
In February, with a ruling that sharply rebuked Mr. Finneran, a federal court found that a redistricting map designed by House leaders denied minorities an equal vote.
Federal prosecutors soon announced an investigation, which is still open, into Mr. Finnneran's handling of the new map, which included his district.
Kimberly Haberlin, a spokeswoman for him, said the investigation "unequivocally" had nothing to do with his resignation.
"It was a natural progression,'' Ms. Haberlin said, "and I think he never intended to stay forever.''
The House majority leader, Salvatore F. DiMasi, is expected to be elected speaker on Wednesday.
Mr. DiMasi, who legislators say has secured enough votes to ensure election, is more liberal, a Democrat from Boston who supports a right to gay marriage and to abortion.
Whatever their view of Mr. Finneran, who operated with a loyal cadre, colleagues say things will be very different in Massachusetts politics.
"For the last seven years the House has been autocratically controlled, and for five years of that people couldn't figure out a way of breaking that control," said Representative Byron Rushing, a Democrat who has been a longtime foe.
"He's gone, and that's a success."
But another Democrat, Representative Gene L. O'Flaherty, a top Finneran lieutenant, said that while legislators were looking forward to a new speaker, the change would be difficult for some.
"I have grown very attached to him both personally and politically," Mr. O'Flaherty said.
"Thomas Finneran did the citizens of the commonwealth a good service. He did his job with integrity, passion and certainly accomplishment."
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