ALBANY - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to play a role in helping New York Democrats try to capture the Senate majority next year and create an all-Democratic state government just ahead of the politically critical job of redrawing congressional districts, Democrats and a Republican said this week.

Back in Albany, the Republicans who have held the Senate majority since 1966 say they can't wait. They will try to repackage that effort with the California Democrat to right-leaning upstate and suburban New York voters as a threat from a “left-coast, out-of-touch liberal.”

In New York's system of redrawing congressional and legislative lines after every census - the next one is in 2010 - the Democrat-led Assembly and Republican-led Senate have had to compromise on the districts. Good-government groups have long criticized the practice, saying the political majorities protect their incumbents to hold onto power. A Democratic majority would change that balance and could result in more congressional districts dominated by Democratic voters which, in turn, could help to tip the balance of power in Congress.

Pelosi is expected to meet with New York Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat, as soon as this weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus.

“House Leader Nancy Pelosi is just one of the many friends that I hope to reconnect with during this weekend's celebration of national political leadership,” Smith said in a prepared statement to The Associated Press.

Pelosi, her hands full in Washington, won't talk about entering a fray in Albany.

“The speaker is supportive of Democrats across the country, but her top priority is electing Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives,” said Jennifer Crider, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a former Pelosi aide.

New York Senate Democrats have leaned on Pelosi - if quietly - for years. They sought her counsel and political donor contacts as they sought to gain a majority in the Senate.

“In 2003, in April, I went to visit the leader in Washington and we talked about this and got a lot of help from her over the past three or four years,” said Lt. Gov. David Paterson. Until last year, Paterson was the Senate Democratic leader credited with getting the party to within three seats of the majority.

“What we needed to do included winning the majority, drawing congressional lines that are more fair and the leader (Pelosi) embraced that,” Paterson said. “She has a lot to do, but some of this has a lot to with how many Democrats go to Washington.”

“Unlike leaders before her, she went beyond romancing the Washington crowd and moved around the states and started building the infrastructure,” Paterson said. “Now that she has become a major leader, she isn't sitting around marveling at her work. She is still going around states like New York.”

John McArdle, the biting and often sarcastic voice of the New York Senate's Republican majority, says he's looking forward to any Pelosi involvement.

“It makes all the sense in the world that a (Senate Democratic) conference dominated by New York City liberals would bring in a left-coast, out-of-touch liberal ... to try to tell upstate and suburban New Yorkers that we need more liberal New York City Democrats to represent them,” McArdle said.

“I think this proves the national Democrats could care less about the needs of New York state, particularly upstate, and all they care about is one party rule - in Washington and in New York,” McArdle said. “That's not going to happen. New Yorkers are too smart for that.”

And the Republicans could have their own national star lined up for help in keeping the majority in former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The GOP's possible nominee for president has a long history with Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

The Senate majority's base has traditionally been upstate outside the major cities, on Long Island and in the northern New York City suburbs. But the state, even in those traditional strongholds, is becoming increasingly Democratic and the party is building on a 5:3 advantage. In recent years, even those Republican areas helped elect Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton twice. Last year Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer was elected by a historically larger share of the vote than any other governor and Republicans have lost five Senate seats in just over two years, leaving them just 33 seats in the 62-member chamber.

So, 2008 offers a unique opportunity for the Democrats that may be too enticing not to give it every effort. The Democrats expect to be buoyed by Clinton on the presidential ballot in November, but any Democrat will likely energize the party after two terms of an increasingly unpopular Republican administration in Washington. And the state Democratic Party is coming off last year's sweep of every statewide office in which they also picked up three seats in Congress, stretching their advantage in the state delegation to 23-6.

Bruno, New York's top Republican, spent much of this year saying how the state needs a check-and-balance on the Democrats who control the executive chamber and the Assembly.

Last week, Smith tried to turn the Bruno's confrontations with Spitzer against Bruno. Smith suggested that if Bruno is too personally “bogged down” in attacking Spitzer, that Smith would take the chores of Senate leadership off his hands and get back to the peoples' business.

“This is a distraction,” Smith said. “It's a means to hold on to the Republican majority.” He added: “Politics is like a pendulum. No question it has swung the other way.”

“Malcolm's dreaming,” was Bruno's retort. “But his dreams are going to turn into nightmares next fall.”

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Michael Gormley is the capitol editor for The Associated Press. He can be reached by e-mail at mgormley(at)ap.org.

AP-ES-09-29-07 1221EDT