He only needed five months.

That is how much time Joe Bruno needed to recover the upper hand after Eliot Spitzer’s “Rip Van Winkle” inaugural address. Backed into a corner, up against a new governor whom everyone expected to be a steamroller even before he proclaimed himself one, Joe Bruno took his lumps. Word of the FBI investigation got out, the majority thinned, Shelly Silver got to lead the way in selecting a new comptroller. Like the boxer he once was, Bruno waited for his chance. And when that chance came Bruno pounced and kept pummeling.

Amid the rhetoric and purported indignation, Bruno occasionally used a sturdy argument: one-party rule is not necessarily something to which Albany or any other capital should aspire.

No one sensible actually believes that Bruno and his fellow Republicans, with just three state senators between them and the wilderness, make this point selflessly, or would voice the same opinion were the situation reversed. But now that Bruno has made the argument, he should be expected to lead his conference and chamber accordingly. Under the banner of balance of power, Senate Republicans will undoubtedly try to put the brakes on the Democratic agenda, and do their best to stymie Spitzer—much like Silver did with the Assembly during the Pataki years. Occasionally, there will be deals struck and compromises negotiated that let some real problems get solved.

Republicans should do more than just be a check on the Democrats. If they really want to be seen as an equal partner in government, the Senate Republicans should spend the upcoming legislative session being proactive, proposing their own legislation on major issues. By the time budget season rolls around, New Yorkers should have a full sense of what the Republicans want to do to improve health care, revitalize the upstate economy (beyond the simple mantra of property tax cuts), handle illegal immigration, take a new approach to conservation and energy innovations, improve state infrastructure and public transportation and move forward on a slew of other major issues facing this state. Forget about waiting for the Democrats to make plans and then lunging forth with criticism. If the Republicans want to argue for balance of power, then let them step forward publicly with big, fully formed ideas and proposals. Let them do at least some of the starting, and not only the stopping.

This would be a major change in Albany, possibly enough of a shift to get the state government out of the mentality that putting minor patches on a few big problems each year counts as a successful session. For the good of the state then, there is much reason to hope that Bruno and the Republicans will step up to the challenge.
Of course, being more than simply the knights who say no could serve the Senate Republicans’ purposes, too: a thick record during the upcoming legislative session could help the New York GOP make a strong case for retaining its State Senate majority when voters go to the polls in November, and stave off extinction going into 2010.

The session ends in June. They only have five months.