ALBANY - In the end, Albany politics became so partisan, so high-stakes, so just plain mean and self-serving that the ugly monthlong standoff that made New York's Senate a national bad example was inevitable.

It was so bad, even well-meaning senators couldn't stop rogues loosed in their house. The rogues took with them the Senate's power, its time and its dignity.

And it won't be the last time.

“I'm less excited about being a senator today,” said Sen. Neil Breslin, an Albany Democrat whose courtly manner was once the model of Senate demeanor. “There's a total loss of collegiality, which I don't think can ever be regained.”

Being portrayed with clown faces on the front page of the New York Post will do that to you.

It was an unprecedented month of turncoats, scoundrels, power grabs, lies and dirty tricks.

Gov. David Paterson said the rise in trading political allegiance for perks or titles is getting worse.

“It is so blatantly quid pro quo that it borders on the boundaries of illegality,” Paterson told The Associated Press Friday afternoon. “And because no one is saying anything about it, it's becoming acceptable ... it's becoming very dangerous.”

In the end, Democrats retook the majority they had won in the November elections over a Republican-dominated coalition.

But at great cost.

Democrats are even more fractured along racial and borough lines. Blacks insisted on one of their members running the conference and Hispanics demanded greater say, while Manhattanites aligned with some upstaters are in conflict with outer borough colleagues over policy priorities. Those existing cracks deepened in January when the party was thrust into running the Senate without experience.

Now, the Democrats depend on the loyalty of their new majority leader, freshman Sen. Pedro Espada. The Bronx Democrat flipped to create the coalition June 8 only to flip back Thursday to recreate the Democratic majority, each time exacting a powerful title over loyal rank-and-file senators.

Many Democrats hate him. Most don't trust him. But all nonetheless accepted him to get the majority back.

For Republicans, the power-wielding coalition they sought since the November elections is gone, at least for now. And with it, their hopes to rewrite oppressive Senate rules that they used freely as a majority are greatly diminished.

The GOP, in the minority after 60 years of nearly uninterrupted control of the Senate, had sought to force greater power for the minority in passing bills. They wanted equal staff, resources and allocation of all-important pork-barrel spending for their districts. All of that would give them a much better chance at keeping their jobs and the chance to regain the majority.

But after nearly five weeks of insisting the standoff was all about reform - “obviously” Espada emphasized to a skeptical press corps - the Senate on Thursday night quickly shelved reform resolutions and considered bringing pork-barrel grants the floor. But after Republicans claimed Democrats were trying ram through the same pre-coup pork plan, in which Democrats took home 90 percent of the $85 million, no action was taken. Both sides agreed to further negotiation after some tense hours late Thursday.

In a clear glimpse of what's to come, the Senate almost gridlocked all over again.

Expect all of this to happen again.

That's because the catalysts for the coup and its aftermath have been building for decades.

Over the years, New York has become more unlike other states. In Albany, the majority of each chamber has near absolute control over what legislation gets to the floor, leadership stipends that can boost the $79,500 base salary by 40 percent or more, bigger offices and bigger staffs with greater resources to secure political careers; and a far bigger amount of pork to dazzle voters and campaign contributors back home.

The biggest prize is still a year away. Whichever party controls each house of the Legislature after the 2010 elections redraws district boundaries beginning in 2011. That's the much maligned practice where every 10 years voting districts are creatively twisted to be stacked with voters who favor the majority.

You can still get ahead by a world-shaking bill, but the faster way to make a mark is to move up in lucrative leadership roles based more on seniority than leadership.

On Thursday, Paterson said what few dare whisper in Albany: There would be a lot less fighting if a majority was created based on a party's substance of legislation, rather than fueled by the allure of the perks of power.

“The ingredients were on the kitchen table,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College poll. “There was dysfunction in Albany, self-preservation, power plays. No one had put it altogether and baked it, but the ingredients were all there.”

And remain so. Now, he said, every senator knows he or she can hold the chamber hostage.

“That's all in the cookbook,” he said. “You could look it up under `Trouble.”'

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

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