One of the things we have always admired about the majority leader of the state Senate, Joseph Bruno, is his opposition to rent control and rent stabilization laws in New York City. When Mr. Bruno proposed in 1997 to eliminate the price controls on rent, he received death threats. But now it seems, according to reporting in yesterday’s New York Sun by our Jacob Gershman, that the Republican leader in Albany has found himself a discounted Manhattan pad of his own.

Courtesy of the Sheraton hotel chain, whose parent, Starwood, just happened to be bidding on the chance to build a convention center hotel in Albany at about the same time Mr. Bruno, who controls a vote on the Albany convention center authority, was enjoying the sweeping views of Manhattan from his 3,500 square foot Sheraton penthouse duplex. The Senate Republican campaign committee that paid for Mr. Bruno’s Manhattan penthouse was charged only a mere fraction of the price a New York Sun reporter who inquired about renting the suite was quoted.

Now, it’s certainly possible that Mr. Bruno was treated no differently than any other Sheraton customer. But one of the reasons that so many New Yorkers find rent control so offensive is that it entitles a lucky and privileged few to special discounts on apartments for which everyone else has to pay a market rate. It sure looks like Mr. Bruno was enjoying the same sort of deal, if only for a night.

New York Republicans can negotiate with hotel chains however they want. Some of them may figure that if Starwood has price flexibility, the party would be better off taking it in the form of a discount on banquet hall rental as opposed to a discount on Mr. Bruno’s penthouse.

What matters to New York voters and taxpayers is that, yet again, those with business before the state are awfully chummy with our public employees. Whether it is Attorney General Spitzer accepting discounted private plane rides, as a candidate, from gambling figures bidding for state business he would have influence over as governor, or the speaker of the state assembly, Sheldon Silver, accepting a discounted and upgraded hotel room in Las Vegas from another gambling interest with business before the state, or Mr. Bruno’s deeply discounted Manhattan penthouse, there’s a pattern.

The differences aren’t so much between members of the various political parties — Messrs. Spitzer and Silver are Democrats, while Mr. Bruno is a Republican — but between those who hold power in Albany, and the ordinary citizens of this state, who when they want to go on a trip or take a vacation have to pay for it with their own dollars at market rates with whatever paltry sums they have left after they pay their taxes.