In raising concerns that Governor Spitzer’s choice to lead the Metropolitan Transportation Authority belonged to a private social club believed to be exclusively white, Albany lawmakers have opened an issue that may be difficult to cap.

Among the Harmonie Club’s roughly 1,100 current members is Mr. Spitzer’s father, Bernard Spitzer, who joined the secretive Upper East Side institution 30 years ago, five years after the newly installed MTA chairman, Dale Hemmerdinger, was accepted.

Before he was confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Hemmerdinger reluctantly resigned his membership last week after some state lawmakers said it was inappropriate for him to take the reins of the city’s public transit system while remaining associated with a club they said was racially exclusive.

While Mr. Hemmerdinger’s connection to the club was scrutinized, the elder Spitzer’s membership in Harmonie never surfaced during the debate. Lawmakers interviewed said they weren’t aware of his association until a reporter brought it to their attention yesterday.

Aides to the governor defended the club but didn’t disclose that Mr. Spitzer’s father, a prominent luxury real estate developer and philanthropist who helped finance Mr. Spitzer’s campaigns for attorney general, was a longtime member.

It’s unlikely that Bernard Spitzer’s association with Harmonie will trigger the level of controversy that surrounded Mr. Hemmerdinger, who was seeking a high-level public post.

Still, the news isn’t sitting well with all in Albany, especially minority lawmakers whose relationship with the governor has been at times distant.

“He’s in the private sector but his son is the governor of New York,” a Democratic assemblyman of Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell IV, said in an interview. “When someone is that close to you … you have some responsibility yourself. It’s high time for the father of the governor of New York to resign from the club as well.”

To a Democratic assemblyman of Brooklyn who was the first lawmaker to raise concerns about Mr. Hemmerdinger’s ties to Harmonie, Hakeem Jeffries, that the governor’s 83-year-old father is a private citizen is a crucial difference.

“My concern relating to Hemmerdinger is that he was crossing over from the private sector into public service, and therefore as the leader of the MTA, it became important to project the message of inclusiveness,” he said in an interview. “The membership of the governor’s father is not relevant to the governor’s tenure.”

In his October 16 letter to Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Jeffries said Harmonie “apparently lacks a single African-American or Latino member” and called Mr. Hemmerdinger’s membership “insensitive at best, and highly offensive at worst.”

A spokeswoman for the governor, Christine Anderson, said the racial makeup of Harmonie isn’t legitimate grounds for criticism because the club welcomes minority applicants.

“It’s a shame that someone would look to criticize the governor’s 83-year-old father for membership in a club that does not discriminate,” she said via e-mail.

The point was echoed by a member of the club, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a Republican trustee of the City University of New York. “Just because an organization is not diverse does not mean it discriminates,” he said. “It’s a disgrace that people are playing this kind of game. Should I join 100 Black Men? Should I be insulted if they don’t admit me?”

Originally called Harmonie Gesellschaft, the Harmonie Club was founded in 1852 by affluent German Jewish immigrants who wanted to establish an urbane private setting for concerts, lectures, and dances for Upper East Side Jews who were denied entry to other clubs because of their religion.

Like other clubs, Harmonie has its cliquish tendencies; for its first 40 years, German was its official language, a barrier for membership for many of the city’s downtown Jews. The club is said to be first in the city to have invited women to dine with men, although it wasn’t until 1986 that it accepted its first female member.

The club’s racial makeup attracted attention in 2001 when Mayor Bloomberg, two months before announcing his run for mayor, resigned from Harmonie and three other exclusive clubs in Manhattan and Westchester County.

“Mike feels that the clubs he is currently a member of have inclusive admission policies that are consistent with his personal beliefs,” a spokesman for the mayor reportedly said at the time.

In August, Senator Obama, an African-American Democratic candidate for president, cancelled a fund-raiser at Harmonie out of concern that the club lacked minority members.

Mr. Hemmerdinger said he resigned from the club because his membership had become a distraction in his confirmation process. He stuck by his insistence that there was nothing improper about the club’s membership policies, however, saying the club has sought to recruit black members.

“I know for a fact that the club does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, color, creed, national origin, or sexual orientation,” he reportedly said.