By promising a hearing in Newport if a 24-hour gambling proposal makes it to his chamber, House Speaker William J. Murphy averted a protest outside the House of Representatives’ annual Christmas party at Newport’s Viking Hotel last Friday.Here’s the way long-time anti-gambling activist Burt Hoffman tells the story:

After reading about the lawmakers’ holiday event, the leaders of the advocacy group Concerned Citizens Against Casino Gambling “decided to demonstrate outside the Viking Hotel against any plans to expand gambling — hours, electronic machines, whatever. As we were marshaling forces, Murphy on Tuesday phoned Father Gene McKenna, CCACG president, asking a halt.”

As Hoffman relayed the conversation, Murphy said “he was planning a social event … and a demonstration would not be nice.” McKenna, in turn, noted that Murphy had not responded to CCACG’s request for a meeting with him, and that CCACG members felt that they “had been treated rudely by House members … when they had sought to testify in past years before the Finance Committee on gambling issues. The phone conversation ended.”

“A few minutes later Murphy called again.”

Anticipating that some version of East Providence Sen. Paul E. Moura’s proposal to allow 24-hour gambling would reach the House, Murphy made an offer. If CCACG would cancel the demonstration, Murphy would promise a hearing in Newport on this and any other expansion proposal, and he would meet with CCACG leaders after the first of the year.

Hoffman said the CCACG board met Wednesday and decided to “accept Murphy’s proposal” and call off the demonstration. “We felt we made our point, which was for Murphy [and the House] to pay attention and recognize that there are lots of voters who oppose expanded gambling.”

The promise of a hearing in Newport also held sway, he said, because “it isn’t easy getting Aquidneck Islanders off the island to the State House to testify or demonstrate. A hearing in Newport gives us a shot at mustering a large crowd in Washington Square and a goodly bunch of people to testify.”

In an interview late last week, Murphy confirmed the substance of the conversations. He said he called Father McKenna to find out “why they were going to protest what I viewed as a purely social, not a political event … [ to register] concern about any attempt to expand gambling I had indicated it was not the forum to do it. If they want to protest, do it at the State House before a session, not at a purely social event.”

In addition to offering face time with the anti-gambling coalition’s leaders — and a hearing in Newport at some point after the session gets under way , Murphy also briefly sided with the coalition on a key issue: whether the state Lottery can introduce “virtual blackjack” on its own, without seeking legislative and, potentially, voter approval. With people sitting around a table, playing off a simulated “dealer,” Murphy said, virtual blackjack “would require legislation.”

But later, through a spokesman, he said “the attorney general should offer an opinion.” Would he ask for one? Spokesman Larry Berman said he did not know.

Weeks before the telephone back-and-forth with Murphy, Father McKenna and others from the anti-gambling coalition met with Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, who, in Hoffman’s words, told them that because “2008 was an election year…[and] there were so many problems coming up in 2008, that he didn’t think Moura’s proposals would go anywhere.”

A spokesman for Montalbano confirmed that the Senate president met with the group recently, but “he doesn’t want to get into the details of what he said was a private conversation.”

Commissioner Koller’s a ‘voice’ in government

Towering above the other singers performing Handel’s Messiah in Veterans Memorial Auditorium a week ago was a familiar face in governmental circles: state Health Insurance Commissioner Christopher Koller.

With a tinge of self-deprecating humor, the 6 foot, 7 inch Koller describes his voice as a “booming tenor” and his four-year run with the Providence Singers as his “contribution to the choral arts.”

Koller said he sang in his Dartmouth College glee club and community choruses, and then took a 12-year break until he commented on the Providence Singers T-shirt worn at a group event by the husband of a former coworker at Neighborhood Health Plan. On the spot, he said, “I got recruited.”

“It’s really fun to do something that has nothing to do with work,” he said last week. “It brings [together] people from all walks of life. Physicians, students, music teachers, financial analysts.” Then of course, there was the “head rush” of singing at the Newport Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center in New York, and most recently, accompanying the Rhode Island Philharmonic in the packed Vets Auditorium.

In the lobby after the Vets performance, Koller saw a large number of people he knew from his day job, including former state Health Director Patricia Nolan, proving in his mind “the two degrees of separation” between “the people on stage and the people in the audience.”

GOP signature drive lags

Dave Talan, of Providence, a longtime Republican operative in Rhode Island, is worried that the GOP is not doing a good job of getting the 1,000 signatures required of each presidential candidate to qualify for placement on the March primary ballot.

“Based on our progress so far, we are very concerned we will fail in this effort to get our 10 GOP candidates on the ballot,” Talan said in an e-mail to party activists.

The problem appears to be that not enough rank-and-file Republicans care about their choices in the presidential race.

“It would seem like we have enough people doing this [collecting signatures]. But we are not getting the turnout at these events that we expected; due to weather, the time of year, conflicts with Patriots games, etc. etc.”

“Less than a third of the number of people who normally attend GOP Committee meetings are showing up at these events,” Talan wrote.

“To those of you who tell us ‘Don’t worry, you’re all set, you won’t have any trouble,’ we ARE worried and we need your help,” he wrote. “We do not want to go out Christmas Day, or the day before, in order to qualify our candidates.”

Democrats face no such difficulties gathering voter signatures, said William Lynch, Democratic state chairman.

Incidentally, the shape of Rhode Island’s March 4, 2008, presidential primary should be clear by Jan. 10, the day the secretary of state’s office certifies the names of candidates running for president and the slates of delegates pledged to them.

To get on the ballot, presidential candidates must gather at least 1,000 signatures by Dec. 26.

R.I. factory payrolls continue to shrink

This just in from the Economic Policy Institute, a national research organization: Once again, Rhode Island is near the top in New England in a dubious-distinction category — the percentage of manufacturing jobs lost between March 2001 and October 2007.

Rhode Island bled 19,600 manufacturing jobs during that period, or 4.1 percent. New Hampshire, which lost 4.3 percent of its manufacturing jobs during the same period, was the only New England state with a higher percentage of loss.

The totals for the other New England states: Maine, down 3.1 percent; Massachusetts, 3.2 percent; Connecticut, 2.5 percent, and Vermont, 3.7 percent.

Roberts blasts ‘inadequate’ response to storm

Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts was the only Smith Hill official to blast the state response to last week’s snowstorm that caused gridlock the likes of which the state hasn’t seen since 1978.

“Clearly, the response that was shown across the board was inadequate,” she said.

Political Scene was curious whether House Speaker Murphy had anything to add.

“The governor’s office can’t blame the General Assembly for this one,” Murphy said through a spokesman.

kgregg@projo.com