The majority leader of the state Senate, Joseph Bruno, is facing increasing resistance to his effort to install Nassau County’s Republican chieftain as the next chairman of the state party.

Some Republican county leaders around the state say they are uncomfortable with Mr. Bruno’s choice of Joseph Mondello to run the party’s headquarters in Albany, and they are criticizing the Senate leader for not consulting them before announcing his support for Mr. Mondello.

While the unrest among Republicans at this point is not seen as a serious threat to Mr. Mondello’s bid to become state chairman, the complaints against Mr. Mondello are proving to be the first real test of Mr. Bruno’s ability to dictate the direction of the state party since he emerged on Election Day as the one surviving Republican force in Albany.

An aide to Mr. Bruno said the majority leader was confident that Mr. Mondello, 68, had enough support from the most populous Republican counties to ensure that he will be elected chairman when party leaders meet for a delegate vote later this month. Mr. Mondello himself controls 10% of the weighted vote, and party leaders of Rockland and Westchester have indicated they will back his candidacy.

The loudest Republican dissenters are from counties with smaller numbers of registered Republicans, and thus do not pose a sizable threat to Mr. Mondello’s bid. Opponents of Mr. Mondello also have yet to produce an alternative candidate who could compete against him.

Still, a number of Republicans are questioning the wisdom of choosing as its state chairman a leader of a county that has come to symbolize the Republican Party’s implosion in New York. Under Mr. Mondello’s watch, Nassau Republicans have lost control of the county executive and district attorney offices and the county legislature, as Republican enrollment has stagnated.

Republicans say they are also concerned that Mr. Mondello is refusing to give up his post as county chairman if he’s elevated to the top party position. One of the major criticisms of the outgoing state party chairman, Stephen Minarik, who also doubled as a county party chairman, was that he failed because his local work took greater priority than his work as state chairman.

In Mr. Mondello, Mr. Bruno has chosen a veteran of machine politics whom the majority leader has relied on to deliver votes in key Senate races. Mr. Bruno’s ability to hold onto the Senate depends a lot on maintaining the Republican Senate’s primacy in Nassau County.

Some political observers say the push back against Mr. Mondello echoes another Republican power struggle that took place earlier in the year when the conservative base of the party sabotaged Governor Pataki’s plans to have William Weld be the Republican nominee for governor and instead rallied behind John Faso during the state convention in June.

The defeat of Mr. Weld was seen in part as a protest against Mr. Pataki’s topdown decision-making, which alienated party activists. Republican county leaders interviewed yesterday said they once again felt snubbed by another dictate handed down by an Albany leader.

“They made a decision without the rest of us, apparently,” the chairman of Livingston County Republican Committee, Lowell Conrad, said. “I guess we’re still doing business the same way.”

Mr. Conrad said Mr. Mondello called this week to notify him that he was interested in becoming party chairman and to ask for his support. “Before he called me, I read in the paper that he’s our choice,” Mr. Conrad said. “I’d rather read that in the paper afterwards.”

His sentiment was shared by a party delegate from Onondaga County, Robert Smith, who is one of the key Republican activists pushing for a rejection of Mr. Mondello. “Somebody in Albany says they’ve made a decision, we’re going to write a script and hand it to you,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m not sure we’re going to let that happen.”

From his perch as majority leader, Mr. Bruno, 77, has considerable influence over the 62 Republican County chairmen. He controls patronage jobs, though not as many as he did before the election of a Democrat, Eliot Spitzer, as governor. He also controls the flow of tens of million of dollars of member items, the so-called pork spending that individual senators rely on to win favor among their constituents.

For Mr. Bruno, the next few days will be a balancing act. Through his control of committee positions, internal budget allocations, and the dispensing of member items, he can lean on his Republican Senate caucus to put pressure on the county chairmen to back Mr. Mondello. If he leans too hard, however, he faces the risk of alienating the senators whose support he needs to remain majority leader.

Mr. Mondello’s critics say they won’t be easily persuaded. “I don’t just fall in line,” the chairman of the Allegany County Republican Committee, John Hasper, said. “We’ve got a lot to lose. It’s a little organization called the Republican Party.”