Governor Spitzer is heading into his second year in office with much of his governing agenda paralyzed by his feud with Senate Republicans.

After rounds of negotiations with Mr. Spitzer, lawmakers last night seemed to be preparing to go home from a special session without reaching agreements on many of the governor’s top agenda items, including campaign finance legislation and a long-term plan to determine who will manage the state’s thoroughbred racetracks.

Interrupting a six-month recess, the Legislature’s autumn excursion to Albany was the latest attempt to salvage legislation that has been left hanging since lawmakers adjourned.

The breakdown in talks deprives Mr. Spitzer of policy victories that could have brought him some political relief after months spent fending off allegations by Senate Republicans that his administration misused the state police for political purposes.

It was also the most striking evidence of the heavy toll that the falling out between the governor and the Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, has taken on legislative productivity, foreshadowing an even more arduous budget battle next year.

For months, the governor has sought legislation to tighten the state’s campaign finance laws, ease costly regulations governing public construction projects, and broaden the state’s criminal DNA database. Senate Republicans demanded additional spending on property tax relief and a fresh dose of aid for local capital projects, while Assembly Democrats hoped to at least secure a raise in legislative salaries.

Senate Republicans blamed the stalemate on the refusal by the governor to adhere to past handshake agreements on a $200 million property tax rebate for senior citizens and a capital spending package worth about $1 billion that was to be parceled out among the Senate, the Assembly, and the executive chamber.

“He didn’t keep his commitment. He didn’t keep his word, and he walked away from the senior money and the economic development monies that we wanted to see enacted,” a spokesman for Senate Republicans, John McArdle, said.

The governor’s office insists that it had never settled on exact rebate and capital spending figures when the tentative deal was announced in July.

Lawmakers interviewed said the collapse of negotiations was the inevitable consequence of the souring of relations between Messrs. Bruno and Spitzer, who have been entangled in a series of nasty ethics disputes.

With the governor struggling to raise his sagging poll numbers and entrenched in a politically dangerous battle to defend his plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, many Republicans saw no compelling reason to soften their position and offer Mr. Spitzer some breathing room.

While Republicans run the risk of being painted as obstructionists heading into the 2008 election year, they are banking on the assumption that voters will hold the governor more responsible for the lack of accomplishments.

A Republican senator of Brooklyn, Martin Golden, said in an interview that Mr. Spitzer had more to gain from an agreement than his conference did. “We don’t need one, he does,” he said.

Aided by eight Democrats, Republicans ended up using the session to pummel the governor one more time on the license issue, passing one-house legislation that would overturn his policy and force applicants to prove their legal residency status.

Aides to the governor insisted the administration never had high hopes for the session.

“I don’t think anyone expected things to come together today. It’s a contentious environment,” a spokeswoman for the governor, Christine Anderson, said. “Over time the public is not going to stand for it. They had a real opportunity to come back here and get things done.”

For Mr. Spitzer, the barren results of yesterday’s talks do come with a silver lining, particularly for Mr. Spitzer’s budget office, which must figure out how to plug a nearly $4 billion budget gap in the upcoming fiscal year.

A broad-range deal would have cost the state more than $1.2 billion in operating and debt expenses, putting additional strain on the state’s finances.

“He’s in a position where he does need to save money,” the director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, E.J. McMahon, said. “Presumably he realizes that not having deals on spending is not a big problem.”

A deal failed to materialize despite aggressive intervention by the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, who assumed the role of peace broker between the governor and Mr. Bruno. With increasing intensity, Mr. Silver’s Democratic conference has been importuning their leader for their first pay raise in a decade.

Unfortunately for the Assembly, Mr. Spitzer made a salary hike contingent on the Legislature agreeing to more restrictive campaign finance laws, and so Mr. Silver yesterday came back to his members empty-handed.

The special session was not entirely marked by gridlock.

Senate Republicans agreed to clear the bulk of a lengthy backlog of gubernatorial nominations for positions in state government, including confirming the appointments of H. Dale Hemmerdinger as chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Carl Hayden and a former state comptroller, H. Carl McCall, to the board of the State University of New York, Mr. McArdle said.

Mr. Hayden, a former chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, will serve as chairman of the board.

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