That night, from his lake house in Wolfeboro, N.H., Romney called Monahan, who quoted him as saying: "Bill, my stomach is turning. ... My senior staff is unanimous that I have to ask for your resignation. I don't want to do this, but I am outvoted."

Still bitter, the lawyer and former Belmont selectman filed a suit, now pending in U.S. District Court against Romney and others, seeking reinstatement.

Romney's obsession with maintaining a pure image annoyed many Beacon Hill regulars, but it produced an administration that was virtually scandal-free and restrained in the exercise of patronage.

Romney gave jobs to many of his own campaign workers but was aggressive in ousting longtime operatives of his own Republican Party, including David Balfour, head of the Metropolitan District Commission, a patronage haven that Romney would fold into another state agency.

Much later, Romney rebuffed requests that he appoint Brian P. Lees, the Republican leader in the Senate, to the open job of clerk-magistrate of Springfield District Court.

"I wanted to change the environment in Massachusetts from one of patronage to one of people getting jobs on the merit, and I didn't feel like I could make an appointment based on the fact that somebody was the minority leader of my party," Romney said in an interview.

Romney also sanitized the judicial selection process, requiring the nominating panel to conduct an initial blind review of candidates without knowing their names, gender or references.

"The review process was completely apolitical," said Ralph C. Martin II, who chaired the Judicial Nominating Commission for half of Romney's term. A July 2005 review by the Boston Globe of Romney's judicial picks detected no philosophical or partisan pattern.

The paper reported he had "passed over GOP lawyers for three quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced, instead tapping registered Democrats or independents including two gay lawyers who have supported expanded same-sex rights."

Romney's hiring policies were flexible enough to tolerate some who were politically useful, however.

He found a job for Angelo R. Buonopane, a veteran of past GOP administrations, who in Romney's campaign had raised money, reached out to contacts in organized labor, and assembled an election eve rally in Boston's North End.

But in April 2005, Buonopane resigned his $108,000-a-year job after the Globe reported his post had "no obvious duties" and reporters observed him working an average of less than three hours on eight different days. -->

In his final months as governor, Romney filled more than 200 slots on boards and commissions with party loyalists, state employees and others. Fehrnstrom, his communications director, was named to the part-time board of the Brookline Housing Authority.