It’s been a busy year for Lloyd Constantine, Governor Spitzer’s senior adviser and confidant in the executive chamber.

Mr. Constantine, a former antitrust litigator and assistant attorney general under Robert Abrams, has been consumed by two of the governor’s most ambitious long-term projects.

He’s running Mr. Spitzer’s higher education commission, which will soon release a roadmap for bringing more direction and prestige to the sprawling State University of New York system, as well as a local government commission, charged with the task of shaving down the endless layers of taxing jurisdictions in New York. He calculates that he’s logged 20,000 air miles crisscrossing the state.

In his spare time, he advised the governor on changing Interest on Lawyer Account Fund regulations so that banks pay more interest on the accounts, thereby generating tens of millions of more dollars a year for civil legal services.

Now, Mr. Constantine says he soon intends to spend more time at the home offices, keeping closer tabs on an administration that some say is in disarray. On Thursday, I sat down for coffee with Mr. Constantine to talk about the mushrooming controversy over illegal alien driver’s licenses and the road ahead for Mr. Spitzer, whom he said he speaks with on a nightly basis.

I asked him about the bipartisan political backlash that has emerged against Mr. Spitzer’s plan to adopt the federal REAL ID Act and to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. On the issue Mr. Constantine is adamant: “This makes New York more safe and secure. I think it makes the country more safe and secure now. We’re taking a lot of hell from both sides here, but I think we’ve done the right thing,” he said.

The governor’s critics said his endorsement of REAL ID signified a retreat. Could the administration have avoided the “hell on both sides” by rolling out the license plan as one policy package?

“People have this whiplash effect … If you look at the public record, you see it was always the intention, our intention, the intention of the administration to roll this out with full recognition that there would be another class of ID, which would not be available to this population,” he said.

“Some of the people that are really mad at us now, are mad at us in truth because they feel it has expedited REAL ID, when they wanted it to never happen … I think, frankly, the federal government and homeland security should be quite happy here because what we did both facilitated and expedited something that they wanted to do … It looks to me like REAL ID is going to occur faster now as a result of what we did.”

Yes, but many of the governor’s own party members in Albany say they were taken by surprise by Mr. Spitzer’s embrace of REAL ID. They don’t recall the governor ever conveying that he supported implementing a national identity card?

“This is something that Eliot talked about during the campaign. I do know it was publicly stated in the early part of the year, I believe in February. It’s sort of like there are times when you don’t want to hear something because what you want to hear is what you want to hear … There are people who say: ‘We didn’t know you were going to do that.’ But we said it … Some will disagree that that’s a good idea, but we’re not going to be obstructionists, and obstruct the federal government from implementing the system.”

Privately, a number of Senate Democrats say they are concerned that the license issue could pose a political liability for them next November. What was the political calculus on the part of the governor?

“I think everything should be part of the calculation … I don’t think it’s a science. I think it’s a craft … Let’s say safety and security were measured in pounds. This made us just one pound safer, but it was wildly unpopular with everybody and with the Senate Democrats. Well maybe that’s a reason not to do it, and not to do it right now. If you feel that there is a significant increase in the safety and security of the state … if you take all of that into consideration, then that may outweigh the political discomfort of some allies. Ultimately, I didn’t make all of those calculations. Ultimately, the governor did. I agree it was the right thing to do.

“Listen to Chertoff. Chertoff said this is a significant improvement in the safety and security of both the state and the nation. Then he says in the next breath, ‘I don’t agree with giving licenses to illegal aliens.’ He’s not saying that giving licenses to illegal aliens in any way shape or form detracts from it. He knows that it actually adds to the safety and security. Essentially he is playing a political game there,” he said.

The governor seems to be short on allies and political capital right now. Do you see that as a problem for his administration as he tries to push his agenda?

“I think our political capital will increase as we accomplish, as we build things, as we make reforms, as we change outmoded systems, as we improve education, as we make government more efficient, as we make the state more secure. And therefore, I think ultimately, the political capital will not rest upon the press’s daily pronouncements … A fair, sober, dispassionate assessment says we had, in terms of accomplishment, a very good year.”

People tend to focus more on the governor’s feud with Joseph Bruno and Senate Republicans. To what extent could Mr. Spitzer’s soured relations with Mr. Bruno have been avoided or handled differently?

“Obviously, it could have been handled better. I mean obviously, OK. Some of the people who handled it are gone … I think I see him taking from it is basically, you know, we just have to get back to work and just steadily and apply ourselves to all of the reasons that we’re here.”

The governor’s decision to unleash the IRS on Mr. Bruno would seem to suggest the governor hasn’t moved on.

“I believe that we could have done some things better. I believe some mistakes were made … The thing I think about every day is how to do it better the next day. And what I see this governor doing is, you know, basically advancing the very agenda that he ran on, the things that he promised, which are schools, economic development, infrastructure … I think that some of us probably failed him over the first 10 months and not being as insistent that that’s what we are really here for.” There’s a perception that the governor surrounds himself with “yes” people. Would you say you’re one of his “no” people?

“I think I’m one of those people, but I haven’t been around as much as I should have. He’s basically to some extent said that look, I’d like you to be around more than you’ve been … In the last couple weeks there were any number of opportunities to do, to do something you know of a political thrust … and in every instance, it’s been let’s just stick to our work, build, reform, etc.”

jacob@nysun.com