DeLeo wants house troops to go retail

Speaker Robert DeLeo has a message for the seven score or so House Democrats who will try to get reelected in the fall: Scram.

Vulnerable Democrats say they have heard the message loud and clear from House leaders, increasingly in the days after Sen. Scott Brown’s upset victory over Attorney General Martha Coakley in the U.S. Senate election. The House’s senior members and strategists want less seasoned lawmakers in volatile districts, particularly, to spend less time on Beacon Hill, and more time mingling with constituents, calling in-district voter contact a sort of inoculation against the type of anti-incumbent wave some analysts think may be building.

“If folks have been doing their work at the local level, then they’re going to be OK,” DeLeo told the News Service Friday during an interview in his office. “They don’t know Martha Coakley, they don’t know Scott Brown, they just know what they see on TV and read in the newspapers. But if the person has a touch, can touch their local state representative, then I think that gives them a tremendous advantage, if you will, in terms of getting re-elected.”

“But people have to do their homework, most importantly, and I think that those folks maybe who don’t do their homework, and haven’t been making their rounds in their local communities, you know, that’s a concern I have,” the Winthrop Democrat said, noting that Brown had won both Winthrop and Revere, the other municipality he represents.

The strategy marks a shift in tone for top Democrats, who frequently insist they want colleagues to run on their records and defend one-party rule policies. This year, with a spate of Hill misbehavior and a parcel of unpopular tax-and-cut votes near the top of their collective résumé, DeLeo appeared to urge his charges to place less of an emphasis on policy and instead underscore retail, face-to-face politicking. With roughly one formal session per week, the legislative schedule has afforded lawmakers time to stay away from Beacon Hill and in their districts.

State Republican Party officials said the GOP had seen 75 candidates pull papers for state or federal office prior to Brown’s win. Since, the party said, about 60 potential candidates had expressed interest.

“There’s been a substantial disconnect between what Democrat legislators do and say in their district and what they do and say on Beacon Hill,” said state Republican Party spokeswoman Tarah Donoghue. “Democrats are vulnerable in 2010 because they’ve taken a series of substantially bad votes, from the sales tax and more.”

“In terms of what our candidates are doing, I think they’re definitely going to be highlighting the voting records of some really entrenched incumbents, and they’re running on a strong message of fiscal responsibility and living within our means, in terms of what the state is spending,” Donoghue said.

Each House district represents about 40,000 constituents, and members in some low-voting districts can earn a seat with little more than 5,000 votes, maximizing the value of each interaction. The speaker doubted a projection by one of his committee chairs, Bills in Third Reading chair Vincent Pedone, that the House could see 40 new members after the November election.

“Maybe 20. Forty may be a little bit high,” DeLeo said.

DeLeo also pointed to a split between organized labor and elected Democrats, who have chipped away at longtime union benefits and perks since the economy went south, curbing collective bargaining agreements, scaling back the Quinn Bill program that benefits law enforcement workers who obtain higher education, and targeting health care and pension costs through budget-trimming efforts.

“I think because of the economic condition, the natural alliance between unions and the Democrats has been strained somewhat,” he said, adding, “I think we both have to make efforts to work with each other.”

DeLeo said he likely would have attended Thursday’s state AFL-CIO conference in Plymouth, an event from which Gov. Deval Patrick withdrew after other unions opted to join police officers in picketing his scheduled speech.

“I probably would have,” DeLeo said. “That’s easy for me to say, because I’m not in that position. The only thing that would have concerned me is if you went there and were talking to an empty room. I’m not sure that that would’ve been the right thing to do.”

One of labor’s top priorities is also DeLeo’s: passing gambling expansion legislation this year. DeLeo, whose district includes two racetracks, wants slot machines at the tracks and casinos, putting him at odds with Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray, neither of whom wants slots.

“I’m not there,” Murray said Thursday during an interview that aired Sunday on WCVB-TV. “I want jobs. I want construction jobs and I want permanent jobs. And we have no regulatory authority to oversee just slots at the tracks right away. So you can’t put the cart before the horse.”

“I would have to see something really firm in writing, promises kept, with timelines, and be able to claw back if they don’t build something in addition to the track,” Murray said.

DeLeo said the House budget would not include gambling revenues, pointing to unpredictability around the final details of the bill.

“You never know what’s going to happen in conference, you never know what’s going to happen with the governor … Bottom line, I don’t think it’s anything you could definitively say, ‘I see this as happening’.”

Also excluded from the House budget: taxes, including the list Patrick proposed in his own spending plan.

“There’ll be no new taxes,” he said, adding that fees were also unlikely: “I think any type of discussion about any other, you know, revenue enhancements will not be in the budget.”

Murray called Patrick’s tax on candy and soda a “bad idea,” said she was undecided about the governor’s cuts in life sciences and film industry tax benefits, and talked about imminent business retention and small business relief plans when asked about ways the state can generate new revenue during the upcoming budget cycle.

During her TV appearance, Murray also said criminal allegations and convictions facing three former colleagues – Sens. Dianne Wilkerson, James Marzilli and Anthony Galluccio, who is now in jail due to probation violations stemming from a hit-and-run accident – had “brought shame” on the Senate and there was not much senators could do to reverse damage caused to the institution’s image. Murray accused the media of not covering government restructuring and focusing on senatorial misdeeds and said senators need to focus on retail in-district politics.