It’s a little hard to take seriously all the talk about reform from our state lawmakers when so many of them continue treating the disgraced former senator from the Bronx, Guy Velella, as someone deserving of respect, sympathy, and kid-glove treatment. On Thursday, for example, the Republican majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, responded to the recent outcry for change at Albany by appointing a task force on government reform. On the very same day, however, Mr. Bruno also declared that Velella’s early release from Rikers Island, after three months of a one-year sentence, was “a good thing.”

Mr. Bruno apparently feels that his former colleague has suffered enough, having lost both his elected office and his license to practice law. Velella “has been financially hurt and really publicly disgraced,” Mr. Bruno said. “He served 100 days in jail, and there was no great justice in keeping him behind bars.”

By our lights, Velella’s debt to society easily exceeds the full year. He did, after all, plead guilty to taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes for helping steer state contracts to undeserving companies. In effect, he put his public trust up for sale. As the leader of the Senate – and, indeed, as one of Velella’s friends – Mr. Bruno has a special duty to shun that behavior.

This is the same Mr. Bruno who – when the allegations against Velella first surfaced years ago – accused the district attorney pursuing the investigation, Robert Morgenthau of Manhattan, of engaging in a politically motivated witch hunt. Mr. Bruno was also among those who funneled thousands of dollars into Velella’s campaign committee last year to help cover his legal fees.

Even since the guilty plea, we are not aware that Mr. Bruno has uttered a single word of repudiation for his former colleague, or any kind of apology to Mr. Morgenthau. On Thursday, in fact, he did not rule out supporting Velella for re-election in the future. He takes his loyalty too far.

Mr. Bruno is not alone in his misplaced solicitude for a felon. The Local Conditional Release Commission – which approved only five of more than 7,000 applications over the past year – granted Velella his early freedom after receiving no fewer than 32 letters in his support, including missives from Mayor Koch, the archdiocese of New York, Representative Eliot Engel, retired judges, and community leaders of the Bronx.

The commission might better have listened to the words of the judge who sentenced Velella last May, Joan Sudolnik of the state Supreme Court at Manhattan.

“It has been said that this case is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy not for the defense but for the voters and taxpayers,” Judge Sudolnik said. “We can ill afford further erosion of public trust.”

Governor Pataki seems to get it, too. “I’m concerned about the message it sends,” Mr. Pataki said of Velella’s premature liberation. “We want to have equal justice for people. That’s an important part of our criminal justice system.”

Perhaps those who empathize with Velella – particularly his fans in the Legislature – recognize that there is a fine line between his misbehavior and business as usual at the Capitol. What is he guilty of, in the end, but using his power as an elected official to squeeze money out of those with business before state government? This is the standard way that Albany pols fill their campaign accounts. If Velella had retired from the Senate, and hung a shingle as a lobbyist, he could no doubt have peddled his influence for millions of dollars without fear of retribution from Mr. Morgenthau.

Even before he crossed the line to bribe-taking, Velella embodied much of what is corrupt about the Albany culture. He thrived not by advancing good government, but by trading favors with special interests. His claim to fame was his ability to funnel pork-barrel dollars to the Bronx from Albany, much of which, no doubt, did little but grease the machinery of the poverty industry. He was also the poster boy of Albany gerrymandering. The Republicans who drew his district went so far out of their way to exclude minorities that one civil rights attorney likened its outline to a “dismembered lobster.”

That he could still wield influence from behind bars, and win a favor denied to ordinary inmates, is as discouraging as it is impressive. Any serious effort to fix Albany must reject this dubious legacy. And any politician who wants credibility as a reformer will show Velella contempt rather than collegiality.