ALBANY – Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is seeking to distance himself from comments he made questioning the legality of Governor Pataki’s proposal to give private school tuition tax credits to poor parents with children in struggling school districts.

After saying on Wednesday that the proposed tax credits would face “serious constitutional issues” if they were used to support parochial schools, Mr. Spitzer yesterday said that he was receptive to the governor’s plan and that he did not intend to give the impression that it would have legal problems.

The attorney general attempted to clarify his position after his chief Republican rivals in the governor’s race said his earlier comments showed that he is fearful of challenging the New York City teachers union, which opposes tuition tax credits. Mr. Spitzer’s skepticism also put him in the awkward position of appearing to show deference to a 19th-century state law with anti-Catholic roots that prohibits the public funding of religious institutions, such as parochial schools.

In a statement, Mr. Spitzer said his response Wednesday to a query from The New York Sun “should not be construed to imply that I believe that there are such problems in Governor Pataki’s proposal, or that I am opposed to education tax credits.” He added: “In fact, I support the idea of education tax credits.”

Mr. Spitzer, however, suggested that the state first ought to comply with a 2004 state court ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case that required Albany to give New York City schools an additional $5.6 billion in annual funding.

“While most of the benefits provided by the governor’s proposal would go to parents whose children are educated in the public schools, the state’s first obligation must be to achieve a resolution of the CFE litigation,” Mr. Spitzer said.

Yesterday, his opponents in the race accused him of flip-flopping on the issue. “I think he’s trying to have it both ways,” said John Faso, a Republican candidate from Columbia County who in 2001 supported a tuition tax credit measure when he was the minority leader of the Assembly. “He’s saying he’ll support it only if CFE is resolved. Education tax credits are needed now by poor and middle-income families seeking a better education for their children.”

Mr. Faso said: “I’m sure Randi Weingarten read his statement before anyone in the press did.” Ms. Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, has questioned the effectiveness of tuition tax credits and has predicted that they would not survive legal challenges.

Another candidate, William Weld, a Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997, called Mr. Spitzer’s new comments a “flip-flop” and said he “would like to know who he spoke to between yesterday and today. I think the real Eliot Spitzer is the one who spoke yesterday.”

Mr. Pataki’s plan would give poor parents with children in public and private schools dollar-for-dollar tax credits of up to $500 that could be used to pay for qualified “education expenses,” such as tuition or tutoring fees, as long as the tutoring does not involve “the teaching of religious tenets, doctrines, or worship.” Parents would be eligible if they reside in a school district with at least one school that is failing under President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program. Every New York City school district would qualify by that standard.

“This bill is necessary to assist taxpayers with the qualified educational expenses incurred to provide additional educational opportunities for their dependents when such opportunities in the public school systems are below par,” Mr. Pataki’s bill memo states.

The governor’s bill was carefully crafted in an effort to ensure that it would stand up to New York’s Blaine amendment, which bans direct or indirect public funding of religious institutions. New York is one of 37 states with Blaine amendments, named after a former speaker of the House of Representatives, James Blaine, who went around the country pressing states to amend their constitutions to counter the spread of Catholic schools.

Supporters of the governor’s tax credit program and similar legislation put forward by Brooklyn lawmakers, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a Democrat, and Senator Martin Golden, a Republican, say the purpose of the initiative isn’t to support religious schools but to help educate poor children in struggling school districts.

“It’s not a backdoor to vouchers,” said Michael Tobman, the executive director of Teach NYS, a newly formed group that is advocating for education tax credits and is backed by Catholic and Jewish communities in the city. “It’s entirely a different creature.”

Critics of the tax credits say they would violate New York’s Blaine amendment because they would still be indirectly aiding religious schools. Several other states offer tuition tax credits, and courts in Illinois and Arizona have upheld their legality after teachers unions filed lawsuits against the programs.

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat of Manhattan who is a critic of school vouchers, has not ruled out the governor’s program, but, like Mr. Spitzer, has said the state should be focused on complying with the CFE lawsuit.