The minuet which is beginning in Albany over rent regulations presents Governor Pataki with an opportunity to redeem a bit of the hopes that free-market Republicans had once placed in him as a politician of principle. What we refer to as a minuet began a week ago, when the Assembly approved a five-year extension of the rent regulations a year before they were set to expire. Politically the idea was to smoke out the governor and, for that matter, the Senate in advance of the November election. The theory is that both the governor and the Senate will be reluctant to offend such a large group of voters as tenants in New York City, which is shaping up as the central battleground of the campaign. Then, in New York this week, tenant groups and their supporters declared that Mr. Pataki’s newfound conversion to traditionally democratic causes should include their key issue of rent regulations. “If George Pataki can be an election-year liberal on gun control, on abortion, on health care, hope springs eternal,” the former public advocate, Mark Green, declared. He spoke on the steps of City Hall at the announcement of a Council resolution in support of the bill the Assembly passed last week.

The last time this issue came up, the majority leader in the Senate, Joseph Bruno, threatened to let the laws expire altogether, but Mr. Pataki, two years into his first term, caved to pressure from tenant protests and leaned on Mr. Bruno to extend the laws with only minor modifications until June of 2003. It ought to be said that there were many supporters of Mr. Pataki and the idea of free-market reforms in New York State who took that as a turning point in Mr. Pataki’s career, removing him from national prospects in the vast battle of ideas that was taking shape in the country while President Clinton threaded his way through the old Reagan front line. Given all this, the best one can hope for right at the moment is for the governor to avoid caving in to the pre-election pressure, leaving open the possibility that he’ll pick up this issue in a third term. The last thing that New York City needs in this time of economic difficulty is a new round of disincentives to building housing. If Mr. Pataki aspires to play any role on the national stage in the years ahead, he’s going to need at some point to make good on the hopes that were placed in him as a voice for the idea that freemarket reforms have a role to play in New York’s future.