Andrew M. Cuomo will not be sworn in as governor of New York for seven weeks, but his jockeying with the Legislature has already begun.

In his first public appearance since the election, Mr. Cuomo, at a conference of Latino lawmakers in Puerto Rico, faced questions on Monday about whether he would seek to replace the State Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a fellow Democrat, and if he might deploy his lieutenant governor to resolve a potential deadlock in the State Senate, where election results, after recounts and legal fights, may leave the parties in a 31-to-31 tie.

Mr. Cuomo avoided a question about where he would seek cuts in state school aid to help balance the budget, insisting that his campaign policy books — widely criticized for lacking specifics — had made clear where he stood on such issues, which are likely to be a flash point in future battles with lawmakers.

And Mr. Cuomo continued to be vague about his transition plans, except to affirm that he would like to recruit high-quality personnel into the executive branch.

“Talent, talent, talent,” the governor-elect said when asked if he could name three tasks he hoped to accomplish before his swearing-in on Jan. 1. Mr. Cuomo also said he would be meeting this week with Gov. David A. Paterson, with whom he shared a table before speaking to the conference on Monday morning, to discuss formal transition arrangements. The five-day conference, known as Somos el Futuro, was abuzz with talk of about a potential coup against Mr. Silver.

Many saw Mr. Cuomo’s influence at play in an article published on Sunday in The New York Post, which speculated on how the governor-elect might join with rank-and-file lawmakers to unseat Mr. Silver, the longest-serving speaker in state history and Mr. Cuomo’s chief rival for influence in Albany.

Aides to Mr. Cuomo are quoted anonymously in the article as saying that Mr. Cuomo would prefer to work with Mr. Silver rather than challenge him as speaker. A spokesman said Monday that the governor-elect was not behind the article.

Asked what sort of signal he wanted to send to Mr. Silver, Mr. Cuomo, a politician highly practiced in the art of the strategic press leak, insisted he was “not a big signal-sender.”

“I’m looking forward to working with the leadership of the Assembly,” Mr. Cuomo added, not mentioning Mr. Silver by name.

While some have speculated that the 33-member caucus of black and Latino lawmakers in the Assembly could band together with upstate Democrats to select a new speaker, it is not clear what appetite exists for a coup against Mr. Silver. He is valued by many Assembly lawmakers for defending their institutional prerogatives and for bearing the brunt of editorial-page criticism of the Legislature on matters of spending and ethics reform.

“Maybe there are people there that like to play politics behind closed doors, and I think they should be more transparent,” said Assemblyman Félix W. Ortiz, a Brooklyn Democrat who is the chairman of the chamber’s Puerto Rican-Hispanic Task Force. “Why do they have to hide?”

Some lawmakers said Mr. Cuomo would achieve more with a united Assembly.

“We’ve seen the results of a fractured house in the Senate; not pretty for anyone,” said Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman, a Queens Democrat and one of Mr. Silver’s allies. “As for any of my colleagues whose ambition might be getting the better of their judgment, let me assure the public and the chattering class alike that the Assembly isn’t going into this potentially most difficult of legislative sessions with a rookie at the helm.”

Mr. Cuomo also voiced his belief, for the first time, that the lieutenant governor, who by law is the presiding officer of the Senate, was constitutionally empowered to cast a tie-breaking vote to determine who would be the next Senate leader, suggesting that Mr. Cuomo could play a decisive role in determining the outcome of a close contest.

While the lieutenant governor has the power under state law to cast tie-breaking votes on procedural matters, it is an untested legal question as to whether those matters encompass the leadership vote. Should Republicans and Democrats enter the new year with 31 votes apiece, such a vote would give Mr. Cuomo enormous leverage — through his lieutenant governor, Robert J. Duffy — over his fellow Democrats in the Senate.

“I don’t want to get into the legal technicalities of it, but the lieutenant governor would be a tie-breaking vote in leadership selection if it came to that,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But let’s count the votes first, let’s find out who won first, and then we’ll figure out a strategy to deal with it.”

Senate Republicans quickly challenged Mr. Cuomo on Monday, arguing that he was wrong about the law. “The State Constitution makes it clear that the lieutenant governor’s authority to cast a vote in the Senate only applies to settling tie votes on procedural matters — not on substantive matters, such as legislation or resolutions to elect leadership,” Mark Hansen, a Republican spokesman, said in a statement.

Senate Democrats said they supported Mr. Cuomo’s interpretation, though what he might extract from them in exchange for Mr. Duffy’s tie-breaking vote remains to be seen.

On Monday, however, Mr. Cuomo said that it was “not his job” to pick the leaders of the Senate or Assembly, but rather the prerogative of rank-and-file lawmakers. “They make that decision,” he said, “and that’s the way it should be.”

(Source: NY Times)