ALBANY – A court decision aimed at illuminating the state’s legislative process is darkening hopes for a timely budget.

Democratic Party legislators this week are discussing the implications of a December Court of Appeals decision that basically affirmed Governor Pataki’s right to demand action on his annual budget proposal. Their dilemma: approving a budget they say is laden with policy in addition to appropriations, or stalling – at the expense of appearing obstructionist.

“Here’s what’s at stake,” Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat of Westchester, said. “We have to get through this budget process, but all that the governor has given us is a prescription for interminable delay and bad process.”

In December, the state’s highest court ruled that the governor, as “constructor” of the budget, is obligated to present the Legislature with a list of the state’s expenses for the coming year. As “critics” of the bill, the justices said, legislators are forbidden from altering any portion of the proposal except through separate legislation following the budget’s passage.

Yet, according to Mr. Brodsky and others, the governor has become increasingly adept at slipping policy decisions into the appropriations bill. They say that voting up or down on the budget means voting up or down on the Republican platform. “The governor has already required a late budget this year by saying, ‘Take what I give you, every element of it, or shut government down,’ ” Mr. Brodksy said.

In arguing at the Court of Appeals against the insertion of policy, the Legislature cited a point in the 2001 budget, in which Mr. Pataki called for $8.3 billion to be spent on the general support of public schools in the state. The request was accompanied by 17 pages of provisos and conditions that dictated when and to whom this money would be spent, terms that had historically been proposed separately from the budget itself.

The Appeals Court decision came at a time of increased public scrutiny over the state’s legislative process and right on the heels of the longest budgetary delay in New York history. Observers say it only complicates the already doubtful prospect of meaningful reform at the capital.

“This certainly doesn’t help the situation in Albany,” said Elizabeth Lynam, deputy director for budget studies at the Citizens Budget Commission of New York, a nonprofit organization that advocates for good government initiatives. “If anything, it works the other way.”

In leading the charge against Mr. Pataki’s newly affirmed powers, Mr. Brodsky, a feisty legislative veteran who is one of several avowed candidates to replace Eliot Spitzer as attorney general in 2006, held nothing back: “I think the governor’s proposal is a prescription for the latest budget in the history of the state,” he said.

Legal experts say that while Mr. Pataki’s powers may have been strengthened by the court, its decision can hardly be cited as the reason for legislators passing a late budget. The budget has not been passed on time since the early 1980s.

“We’ve been having late budgets well before anyone realized the governor had this power, so come on,” Vincent Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School, said. “The only thing that’s changed is that the Appeals Court is saying so.”

One thing the court did not say is how far the governor could go in advancing policy through the appropriations bill. Democratic analysts are still poring over the giant proposal Mr. Pataki delivered to the Legislature on Tuesday to find cases where the governor has done so this year. Mr. Brodsky maintained in a press conference earlier this week that the number of such examples is “in the thousands.”

Still, Mr. Pataki is not likely to retreat. The legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, Blair Horner, said the governor has earned a reputation during his 10 years in office of being a tough negotiator. “This is a political problem,” Mr. Horner said. “And this guy fights to the death.” But Mr. Horner agreed that the court case was only one part in a series of obstacles to legislative reform. “Albany is a big mess,” he said. “It requires a comprehensive response. Part of that response is constitutional.”

Aides to Mr. Pataki characterized Mr. Brodsky’s concerns as fatiguing. “New Yorkers are tired of excuses, and that’s all we’re getting from Richard Brodsky,” Todd Alhart, an administration spokesman, said. “The governor submitted a budget that is fiscally responsible and entirely consistent with what the state constitution has said for almost 80 years. The assemblyman should start working with his colleagues to enact a responsible, on-time budget for the people of New York.”

Late last year, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University described the state Legislature as the nation’s “most dysfunctional.” News reports and public-interest groups trumpeted the tag for weeks, prompting both houses of the Legislature to adopt a list of reforms going into the coming year. Those efforts appeared dead on arrival, however, just one day after Mr. Pataki presented his budget proposal.

Neither party, though, is willing to admit its part in what observers say is likely to be another protracted budget season. “What? Do you think they’re going to blame themselves?” Mr. Bonventre said.