ALBANY —For a brief moment yesterday, the aging showman of the Senate turned menacing.

A reporter had just asked Joseph Bruno about the scolding he received in a Times Union editorial, which called on the majority leader to support a nonpartisan commission to redraw the district lines. A flash of anger crossed the senator’s tanned face.

“I wish they would wake up instead of printing garbage that relates to six years from today,” he said, visibly annoyed that the subject of the press conference had shifted away from his announcement of a tax-cut package for small businesses and manufacturers.

Quickly, the performer inside the 77-year-old majority leader regained control: “You going to be here six years from today?” he asked the reporter. “You don’t know.”

“Am I?” — a pause for timing — “Probably,” he said, sending the room into peals of laughter.

These should be stressful times for Mr. Bruno, whose majority conference is under siege by Democrats and whose political reputation is on the line, held hostage by a federal investigation into his dealings with an Albany-area businessman, Jared Abbruzzese.

Last week, his colleagues reelected him to a seventh two-year term as majority leader, squashing a voice of dissent from an Orange County senator, John Bonacic, who broke ranks and openly called on Mr. Bruno to give up his leadership post. Standing firm with Mr. Bruno were veteran senators, like Frank Padavan and Owen Johnson, for whom a shakeup could mean the loss of their hard-earned senior positions. In a recent interview, Mr. Padavan said he trusts that Mr. Bruno hasn’t committed any wrongdoing.

For Bruno, the coast is still far from clear. With the FBI inquiry hanging over his head, Mr. Bruno is under enormous pressure to regain the Long Island Senate seat that was lost when Michael Balboni, a Republican, joined the Spitzer administration as its homeland security chief.

A Democratic county legislator and ally of Governor Spitzer, Craig Johnson, and the county clerk of Nassau County, Maureen O’Connell, who is a Republican, will face off in a special election on February 6. The New York Senate Republican campaign committee is firing up its fundraising engine to help pay for an advertising blitz that’s expected to begin today, and Mr. Bruno and the chairman of the state’s Republican Party, Joseph Mondello, are rallying volunteers to work the phones.

Republicans are privately wondering whether Mr. Bruno’s future as majority leader depends upon the outcome of the race. “All hell is going to break loose here. There’s going to be finger-pointing up and down the Hudson,” said one legislative source.

Back in Albany, Mr. Bruno is embracing with new enthusiasm the role of reformer. He is proposing to weaken the power of the Public Authorities Control Board, the state body that gives the governor, the speaker of the Assembly, and the Senate leader veto power over the public financing of capital projects. He is also calling for the passage of a bill that would require that budget spending be completely itemized, eliminating lump-sum appropriations that have come under recent public scrutiny.

Senate Democrats, who need to gain three seats to take over the Senate, are skeptical of the Republicans’ message. “They are desperately trying to get some publicity before the special election that makes it look like they’re pro-reformers,” said a Democratic senator of Manhattan, Eric Schneiderman.

Most striking of all, Mr. Bruno has been showering the popular Democratic governor with praise. Asked how he would characterize his relationship with Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Bruno said yesterday: “I think it’s excellent up to this point. We’re on a honeymoon. It’s a love fest.”

Senator Kevin Parker, a Democrat of Brooklyn, said he isn’t impressed: “They have no choice but to get along with the governor because the sun is setting on their hegemony.”