Dianne Delisi is a vintage Cabernet who seems to get better with time and experience. She ventured into the crossfire of a white hot lobby fight over Medicaid reform and persuaded 147 House members to trust her enough to gamble on a new and untested system in place of an HMO expansion that the governor's team was pushing aggressively without his obvious personal support. By the time Delisi made her case, more than 130 fellow representatives had signed on as co-sponsors.

In her first session as the Public Health Committee chair, Delisi strengthened a trauma care program that she'd created two years before and won House support for bills designed to help cervical cancer victims, disabled people who want to work and taxpayers who will benefit from a streamlined benefits delivery system at health and human services agencies.

The Temple Republican emerged as key member of the sales team that was picked for a weeklong public relations blitz on the school finance bill - and she was instrumental in the floor effort on HB 2 as well. When the speaker had to face a group of Republican activists angry about the House tax bill, he wanted Delisi by his side as an expert resource and as a popular leader with a natural ability to disarm her biggest foes. A former Appropriations vice-chair and veteran of budget conference committees, Delisi was tapped to be a conferee on the school bill. With Delisi on the conference committee, the speaker felt like he could afford to take the chance to appoint three up-and-coming sophomore members to help the old pros negotiate a final deal.

Delisi's stance on Medicaid reform put her at odds with key current and ex-members of the governor's staff, which is led by a chief of staff who's married to a GOP consultant who happens to be the legislator's son. But Delisi the lawmaker seemed oblivious to her family connections and came away from conference committee with about 90 percent of what she proposed from the outset.