Newsclip

Together again, leaders optimistic on life sciences bill
By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, NOV. 7, 2007….Reprising the scene of togetherness when they joined six months ago to announce the plan, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi stood Wednesday with Gov. Deval Patrick to play down differences over his $1 billion life sciences bill, but reserved their rights to make changes.

With formal legislative sessions for this calendar year due to end in less than two weeks, some version of the life sciences bill has emerged as likely for November passage, along with DiMasi’s redrafted energy reform plan and a home heating assistance appropriation bill for low-income residents.

Beacon Hill’s top three figures spoke, along with Economic Development Committee House Chairman Daniel Bosley and Economic Development Secretary Daniel O’Connell, to lawmakers and aides crowded into a State House hearing room. Patrick called the meeting to build support for his signature economic development initiative, and personally visited both Murray’s and DiMasi’s offices Wednesday afternoon to invite them to appear.

With a list of legislative accomplishments short enough to bother his supporters, Patrick is cranking up interpersonal lobbying efforts, a strategy shift after a media campaign last month in which he aired his frustrations on the Legislature’s rate of progress.

Both Murray and DiMasi have said in recent weeks that other industries think they are entitled to some of the $500 million the Patrick plan demarcates for capital improvements benefiting life sciences firms.

The governor is also working to heal his relationships with lawmakers. Top Patrick aides met yesterday with a corps of Patrick’s first supporters in the Legislature, acknowledging they should have worked to engage that group earlier in the year.

“I’m reconnecting with some great supporters, continue to take their counsel, and I want to make sure that they know and understand … where they can support our agenda,” Patrick told the News Service.

Patrick said after the meeting, held during a House floor session that saw debate over the death penalty and special rules for handling DiMasi’s energy bill, that he wanted a comprehensive bill passed quickly, but nodded to the likelihood of the Legislature’s changes.

“I don’t think bit by bit is in the best interest of the industry or our competitive position,” he said. “But I understand that there are lots of interests here and that the Legislature wants to work with us and we with them and come up with a bill that we’re all happy with.”

Bosley, a frequent Patrick sparring partner, said he would work with the administration to pass portions of the $1 billion plan if they proved time-sensitive. In an email, DiMasi spokesman David Guarino wrote, “We will do as much of this bill as we can [as] quickly as we can while keeping in mind the other important industries we are trying to help and encourage in the Commonwealth.”

After first answering questions in playful French, Bosley said members have questions about tax credit details, and that his committee plans to report out a comprehensive bill, based on the governor’s life sciences bill, in late January. 

After DiMasi and Murray left the meeting, with many lawmakers and legislative aides staying behind, Patrick urged the crowd of roughly 60 not to let the state’s role as a prominent life sciences “supercluster” erode. “Coach us about how it is we make the bill stronger and better,” he said.

But Patrick also swiped at critics of some of his policy proposals, most of which have met with stern resistance in the Legislature. Saying that legislators knew more about the lawmaking process than he, Patrick said he knew more about business.

“I know the difference between a bogus business argument and a sound business argument,” Patrick said. “And I’ve heard some bogus business arguments in the context of some other initiatives … about what would happen and would not happen.”

Another economic development proposal the administration views as essential, Patrick’s casino plan, has been questioned over the accuracy of its cost-revenue estimates. That plan has also been back-burnered until next year.

Legislators will break in two weeks, voting only on non-controversial matters, until January. Patrick has said repeatedly this week that he is pleased with the recent pace of the legislative process, whose speed he has bemoaned often in recent months.

In May, during a global convention on the life sciences at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Patrick, Murray, and DiMasi shared a stage and unveiled the 10-year plan – unity dented somewhat by an op-ed under Patrick’s and Murray’s names, with DiMasi’s pointedly excluded. The administration didn’t file its bill until mid-July. Since, legislative leaders have been consistent in support for the life sciences industry, but often critical of details of Patrick’s bills.

Relations between state government and the life sciences industry underwent an odd turn this summer, when Robert Coughlin, a former House member who left to become Patrick’s top business development aide, left the administration to sign on as president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. The State Ethics Commission is reportedly probing whether Coughlin behaved inappropriately in talks with the Council while still working for Patrick.

Last week, Patrick stung legislators by blaming the Cambridge-based Novartis pharmaceuticals firm’s decision not to add 400 jobs in Massachusetts on the failure to advance the bill.

Legislators and Patrick aides worked to paint Wednesday’s afternoon tableau as part of a renewed agreement on the bill.

Patrick aides initially said the meeting was closed to press, but later allowed a reporter to enter.