A DAY OF SNIPING IN ALBANY AS LEGISLATURE IS SET TO CLOSE

ALBANY, Dec. 16 - On the eve of the last scheduled meeting of the outgoing
Legislature, the leaders of the Assembly and Senate spent the day sniping
at each other for their collective failure to negotiate agreements on a
host of important issues.

The day began with the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate,
Joseph L. Bruno, attacking the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon
Silver, on a local radio program.

The senator said that Mr. Silver had stalled and refused to negotiate in
recent days on several high-profile bills. Among them is a proposal by the
governor to borrow against money the state receives from tobacco companies
as part of a court settlement, a bill to revamp the state's mandatory
sentences for drug crimes, and another measure that would provide $172
million to local governments to defray health-care expenses.

"He's not prepared to govern," Senator Bruno declared of Mr. Silver. "With
the Assembly, it's constantly later, later, later. Tomorrow never comes in
the Assembly."

"I'm here. I'm ready to govern, so who's being dysfunctional?"

But Mr. Silver later countered that the two main bills the Senate was
planning to pass tomorrow were bills the Assembly had passed months ago:
one banning discrimination against homosexuals and one tightening the legal
threshold for drunkenness, as required by federal law.

"I would suggest that Senator Bruno look in the mirror before he says
anyone else is stalling," Mr. Silver said.

The mutual sniping came as the Legislature prepares to face its greatest
financial crisis in a decade, a $2 billion deficit this year and a $10
billion gap in the fiscal year beginning in April. The combative tone
between the leaders did not bode well for the looming battle over the $89
billion budget, with the Republicans already having declared that they will
not raise taxes and the Democrats that they will oppose steep cuts to
services or widespread layoffs.

As the leaders traded barbs, advocates for gay rights and easing of the
drug laws swarmed the Capitol.

Changing the drug sentences seemed a lost cause for the moment, lobbyists
said. So did bills that would revamp auto-insurance legislation and
regulate the locations of power plants. Mr. Silver said he saw no reason to
act on those issues before the next session, which starts in January.

Seeking to embarrass the Republicans, the Speaker appeared with the mothers
of several inmates locked up for long prison terms because of the state's
tough mandatory drug sentences. Mr. Silver and the womencalled on Gov.
George E. Pataki and the Senate to make a greater effort to bridge the gap
over how to soften the penalties, a conundrum that has stymied lawmakers
here for years.

He also called on Mr. Pataki to consider granting clemency in cases that
many proponents of changing the laws see as the worst miscarriages of
justice - first-time offenders who received the mandatory maximum of 15
years to life.

Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the governor, said that Mr. Pataki had
proposed and the Senate had passed a bill that would let that class of
defendants, known as A1 felons, be released from jail with a judge's approval.

"There are dozens and dozens of families that could have been reunited with
their loved ones under the governor's reforms," Lynn Rasic said. "Clemency
should not be a substitute for reforming the laws."

The Assembly refused to pass the governor's bill. Mr. Silver and his
Democratic colleagues feared that revamping sentences separately for the
top class of felons would remove any incentive Republicans might have to
reduce sentences for other classes of drug offenders and expand drug
treatment as well.

An hour after Mr. Silver appeared with the mothers of drug offenders,
Senator Bruno held his own news conference to announce his re-election as
Republican majority leader. And again, he lambasted Mr. Silver for the
failure to reach agreements on a long list of weighty bills.

"I have tried for weeks to get the Assembly engaged, and we can't," Senator
Bruno said. "I sure hope they are prepared to govern."

An aide to Mr. Silver said that the Assembly Democrats were not about to
act on the tobacco bond proposal or any other major legislation until they
see what the governor will propose in his executive budget.