Massachusetts House Speaker Ron Mariano of Quincy has been presiding over the House of Representatives since December. But speaking before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, he gave his first big picture talk about where exactly he'd like to lead the state. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with GBH News State House reporter Mike Deehan about Mariano's vision. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: House speakers don't usually make it a point to talk about their vision. [There are] recent reports of Mariano sounding mighty green, though.
Mike Deehan: Yeah, and we don't mean just because he's inexperienced in the job because Mariano is certainly not inexperienced; he's been in the House for decades now. What he's green about is an environmental idea and vision. He's aggressively enthusiastic about turning Massachusetts as a state into a real national leader on wind energy, specifically around Nantucket Sound and other areas off the southern coast of the state. So, he launched this plan. It's really a job creation plan through the wind industry that he wants to grow in Massachusetts, invest a lot of tax dollars and get other businesses invested in it as well, if he can coordinate. This was in his first big speech before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. That's a big speech for any Speaker and really a huge one for a brand-new Speaker in the position Mariano's in right now.
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Mathieu: What have we learned about Mariano more generally since he's been on the job, Mike, maybe even less in terms of policy? His speakership, I assume, is going to be different — or already is — from the 12-year tenure of his predecessor, Robert DeLeo. A lot of people have trouble remembering life before DeLeo.
Deehan: Yeah, and I certainly barely remember Speaker DiMasi when he was in charge there. So you're right. It's been an epoch of time at the State House. One thing that's clear about Mariano is, over the last few months, how cooperative he's been with Senate President Karen Spilka. They've issued numerous joint statements on certain issues. It's no longer the case where you [get] "well, what's the House thing? Well, what's the Senate's thing?" They're very often competing with each other; that is the core strife of the State House — House versus Senate. That seems to be pretty hunky dory these days. They even worked out key pieces of legislation, like on the climate control overrides that they did a few months ago. A lot of these COVID bills have been pre-negotiated and smoothed along because the House and Senate are getting together. So it's almost as if they're playing nice again. During the chamber talk, he actually said that he and Spilka have kind of articulated their mutual view of how getting things done is better than getting credit for their specific chamber, which blew the hair back of lots of old State House watchers because that is not how the Senate and the House really talk to each other. And especially when it comes to Baker, he's kind of similar to the way DeLeo was. He said there were bumps in the vaccine rollout, but that he's managed the pandemic well, so keep on going on with moderate Democratic positioning.
Mathieu: I guess the question is, then, with that relationship, does that result in a more productive State House?
Deehan: It could very well. We haven't seen it yet. Most of that is because of the pandemic. We don't have that big set agenda for this year that we usually have; right now, it's: let's get the budget done and wrangle unemployment, things like that. But with the big three, as we call them, slightly more aligned, we could see some stuff. We could also see those Democrats, if they're working together, maybe end up opposing and pushing against Baker a little bit more. That could still result in getting things done because they, of course, have that supermajority.
