Worried about any new competition for the region’s gambling dollars, Rhode Island politicians have had their eyes and ears glued to the Massachusetts casino debate.

But on a visit here last week, Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said he wasn’t even aware of the failed 2006 drive by Harrah’s Entertainment and the Narragansett Indians to bring full-fledged casino-gambling to West Warwick.

That could mean he isn’t likely to be influenced by Rhode Island’s moves on the gambling front.

“Did you have a referendum here?” he asked Political Scene during a brief interview at the State House.

House Majority Leader Gordon Fox jumped in to fill him in the details.

DiMasi has opposed allowing casino gambling in the Bay State. “The governor came out with a very aggressive proposal of three casinos,” he told Political Scene. “We had voted in the House overwhelmingly against slots at the race tracks.

“I told the governor that I would give him a full fair hearing, but I’m extremely skeptical on whether or not we should build an economic future and rely on revenue from casinos to pay for what we need in Massachusetts.”

So which state does he think will be the first to get a casino, now that he knows about Rhode Island’s continuing debate over how much new gambling to allow?

“Nevada,” he quipped.

DiMasi was invited to Rhode Island to speak with lawmakers here who are interested in how Massachusetts is faring in its own landmark health-care effort to insure every resident, amid growing concern about the long-term cost of the subsidized initiative.

The Massachusetts speaker joined Rhode Island House Speaker William J. Murphy at the rostrum during the House session last Wednesday.

House Speaker Murphy aims to grow R.I.’s film, TV industry

If it’s not casinos Rhode Island’s politicians are obsessing about, it’s the movies.

Last week, Speaker Murphy went to Boston to pick up an “Imaginnaire” award. Given by a local industry magazine, the honor recognizes Murphy for helping establish film and television tax credits in the Ocean State.

Since the legislation was enacted, a number of movies have filmed in and around Rhode Island including 27 Dresses, the romantic comedy that opens this week. State officials say the credits have helped bring in more than $175 million in related revenue for Rhode Island.

But the show’s not over yet. The speaker has already set as a priority for the 2008 General Assembly session exploring whether Rhode Island could build a movie studio of its own to attract more film-industry business and the accompanying tax dollars.

Murphy himself got his first taste of the small screen this fall when the producers of the Showtime series Brotherhood invited him to do a cameo on the show.

His role? “Attorney General Murphy,” a local politician who has a brief interchange with the show’s star and supposed House Majority Leader Tommy Caffee, played by actor Jason Clarke.

House spokesman Larry Berman tells Political Scene that Murphy was not paid for the role.

“He’s been helpful behind the scenes so they said, ‘Why don’t you do a cameo?’ It was just a volunteer thing. He didn’t do it for the money.”

Besides, Berman said, “after watching his performance, [Murphy] said if he had been paid he would have given the money back.”

Unlike Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, who had his own cameo in Season One of Brotherhood, Murphy’s name hasn’t found its way onto the Internet Movie Database ( www.imdb.com), which carries listings of all “actors” who’ve appeared in movies and on television.

No word yet if Murphy has collected a Screen Actors Guild card.

Letter-imperfect

The Department of Transportation makes hundreds of signs at its special sign shop in Warwick every year.

Most don’t contain typos.

Political Scene learned last week there was a little problem with several “Handicapped Access” signs installed outside the Department of Transportation’s Smith Hill headquarters.

Three small rectangular signs attached to lamp posts along Smith Street and two along the DOT parking lot direct handicapped residents to “Two Capital Hill.”

Miss the typo? DOT’s address, as noted in the large blue sign near the signs, is 2 Capitol Hill.

“Obviously, there’s a typo there,” DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin told Political Scene on Friday. “Now that it’s been brought to our attention, we’ll correct it.”

The signs were put up about a month ago, St. Martin said, to improve the visibility of handicapped access at the DOT building.

He called Political Scene again Friday to say that a maintenance crew planned to fix the signs the next day. It wasn’t clear if they’d simply patch over the one letter or replace the signs.

Riley, veteran aide to 2 U.S. senators, retires

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said goodbye last month to a long-time political aide and is set to welcome another familiar face to his staff this week.

Dennis Riley, 59, of Little Compton, retired on New Year’s Day after 34 years of federal service — first with former Sen. Claiborne Pell and then with Reed, for whom Riley served as an aide in the senior senator’s Rhode Island office.

“Dennis Riley is a testament and a part of that tradition of talented and conscientious public servants who labor, perhaps in the shadows, but it is their work that is decisive in our success on the floor,” Reed said in a tribute to the outgoing staffer on the Senate floor last month, according to a transcript provided by the senator’s office. “After Senator Pell retired, and the people of Rhode Island gave me the chance to continue his good works, Senator Pell spoke so highly of Dennis that I asked him to join my staff. It is one of the best decisions I have ever made.”

Reed’s office told Political Scene that a new employee, Christopher R. Albert, starts today in his role as the senator’s federal projects director. The 35-year-old Warwick man will work with cities, towns, and nonprofit organizations throughout Rhode Island on federal grants, appropriations, and special projects, according to Reed’s spokesman, Chip Unruh.

Albert, a Roger Williams University graduate, worked as chief of staff to former Lt. Gov. Charlie Fogarty from 2001 until January 2007. He will be based in Reed’s Providence office.

Politics and a pop

Many political groups struggle to attract new members. Maybe that’s because they don’t promote drinking booze during meetings, like the new chapter of Drinking Liberally set to meet in Providence later in the month.

There are more than 230 Drinking Liberally chapters around the country, according to the group’s Web site that promotes the slogan: “Promoting democracy one pint at a time.”

Most of the hosts of the Providence chapter are also active members of the Rhode Island Young Democrats.

“Drinking Liberally is an informal, inclusive progressive social group that gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics over a beer,” one of the hosts, Boston lawyer Chris Blazejewski, told Political Scene. (There are eight Drinking Liberally chapters in Massachusetts.)

Other hosts include Kim Ahern, Rhode Island’s student coordinator for the Barack Obama campaign; Matt Jerzyk, editor of the left-leaning blog RIFuture.com; Aggie Wein, of the Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group; and Julian Dash, a local real estate developer and president of the Rhode Island Black PAC.

Who can join?

“You don’t need to be a policy expert and this isn’t a book club,” reads the Web site. “Just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it’s not taboo to talk politics. Bars are democratic spaces; you talk to strangers, you share booths, you feel the bond of common ground.”

In the interest of public safety, the Web site also encourages members to “remember to drink responsibly, and make liberal use of designated drivers. Drinking and driving is reckless and irresponsible, like a neocon war or corporatist tax cut.”

The first meeting is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Jan. 23 at The Wild Colonial, 250 South Water St., Providence.

Committee appointments

Week two of the General Assembly session brought another round of committee appointments.

Rep. Raymond J. Sullivan Jr., D-Coventry, was named to the House Judiciary Committee, where he’ll replace J. Russell Jackson, D-Newport, who earlier this month moved on to the Finance Committee.

The session’s freshman representatives got their first appointments, too.

Frank Ferri, D-Warwick, and Steven Coaty, R-Newport, were both named to the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee. The two will fill the openings created when Sullivan moved on to Judiciary and Peter T. Ginaitt — who formerly held Ferri’s House seat — left the legislature last year.

speoples@projo.com