ALBANY - The state began searching Wednesday for a new ethics commission executive director who may also run a planned Commission on Public Integrity, but the effort immediately raised concern from a likely candidate and a good-government advocate.

An advertisement in Wednesday's New York Law Journal stated a candidate will be chosen “with the likelihood of becoming executive director of the Commission on Public Integrity.” The ethics commission, which will soon merge with the state lobbying commission into the Commission on Public Integrity, has been without an executive director since Karl Sleight resigned in March to join a law firm.

The current executive director of the lobbying commission, David Grandeau, says he won't apply for the job. But he said he still wants to be considered for the Commission on Public Integrity position when it's created.

What happens to Grandeau is not just of interest to political insiders. Grandeau's continued rule as a regulator is important to good-government groups that have been lukewarm about the new commission, which came out of a reform agreement announced earlier this year by Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders. The advocates said the commission is lacking because it won't regulate the ethics of lawmakers and left Grandeau's role uncertain.

“Grandeau has been a tough cop on the beat,” said Rachel Leon of Common Cause-New York. “He certainly deserves to be considered and the work of the lobby commission must remain as a strong component of the new commission. The public deserves and needs a strong, independent watchdog to head up the Public Integrity Commission.”

Common Cause, the New York Public Interest Research Group and other good-government advocates have long said Grandeau and the lobbying commission are more aggressive than the ethics commission.

But Grandeau said the ad puts him in a bind, because he won't leave the lobbying commission in its closing months.

“When it comes to integrity, you have to do what's right,” he said. “I don't think it's right to leave a commission I basically built up ... in a very difficult time.”

“I would hope that wouldn't disqualify me from applying for the executive director's job at the government integrity commission once the commissioners whose legal responsibility it is to make that decision are appointed,” Grandeau said.

Grandeau was referring to Spitzer's responses in recent months when asked if Grandeau will get the job at the new integrity commission. Spitzer, who as attorney general had some conflicts with Grandeau, said the commission will do the hiring.

Walter Ayres, spokesman for the ethics commission, said Spitzer's new ethics chairman, John Feerick, will only recommend his choice to the government integrity commission.

Ayres also said Grandeau could apply for the current opening and the lobbying commission could operate as many agencies do with an acting executive director.

“It's a likelihood that the person will get it, but there's no guarantee because not all the commissioners have been named,” Ayres said. “We want this to be an open process. Anybody can apply, nobody is excluded.”

Leon said the search, which the ad said ends May 11, should be open and extensive.

“The question is: Are they getting ahead of themselves by selecting a possible successor before they appoint the new commission?” she said.

In January, Spitzer and legislative leaders agreed on the new commission as part of ethics reforms aimed at ending practices that have painted state government in Albany as beholden to special interests.