As state legislators gather at the Capitol this week for post election party caucuses, they will no doubt devote a lot of their discussion to the issue that helped to defeat several of their colleagues: fixing Albany.

The movement to reform state government, which has been simmering for the past year, came to a full boil during the campaign.

An early victim of the turmoil was Assemblyman David Sidikman of Nassau County, a majority Democrat who lost in a Democratic primary to Charles Lavine, an insurgent backed by the Fix Albany campaign of Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.

In the general election, Senate Republicans gave up at least two seats – and, depending on ongoing recounts, possibly as many as four – to minority Democrats who promised to shake up the status quo.

During the course of the campaign,18 majority Democrats in the Assembly signed on to a package of rules changes that would decentralize control of their house, and two others announced proposals to amend the constitution.

In all, no fewer than 135 candidates, including 77 incumbents, pledged support for one or more of the major reform proposals, according to surveys by government watchdog groups. The Republican majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, leapt onto the bandwagon by naming his entire caucus to a task force on reforming state government.

These and other developments have emboldened critics of dysfunction at the Capitol, who see the next few months as a rare opportunity to change the way state government does business.

“I can’t imagine a scenario in which so many members commit to rules reform and not have a significant portion of them happen in January,” the executive director of the Citizens Union, Dick Dadey, said shortly before the election. “If they don’t, there will be hell to pay in two years.”

Even with all the momentum for change, however, no one should underestimate Albany’s ability to stifle a good idea.

To begin with, none of the competing proposals for reform has mustered anything close to majority support. The number of newly elected legislators who responded favorably to the reform surveys, 81, is little more than one-third of the 212-member Legislature. And those 81 members aren’t necessarily on the same page. Some endorsed the four-point agenda of the Citizens Union – overhauling the Board of Elections, changing the rules of the Legislature, enacting public financing of campaigns, and tightening regulation of lobbyists.

Others embraced the 10-point agenda of a coalition of government watchdogs, which also included creating an independent commission to draw the boundaries of legislative districts, banning gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, overhauling the budget process, strengthening the Freedom of Information Law, reining in the propagation of public authorities, and changing the rules for constitutional conventions.

Even those who endorse a common idea would in all likelihood disagree about the details. On the issue of campaign finance reform, for instance, some might advocate government subsidies for candidates to limit the influence of special interests, while others might prefer limiting the size of donations.

Reform proponents also tend to divide over tactics. One group, led by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester County, argues that the only way to effect real change is through constitutional amendments. This would require action by two separately elected sessions of the Legislature and ratification by voters, meaning any changes would not go into effect until 2008 at the earliest.

“We must focus on the constitutional basis of the problem, the constitutional remedies,” Mr. Brodsky said at a forum on fixing Albany last week. “Even thought they’re a little bit slow, they’re the only way to fix the problem.”

Others are focusing on steps lawmakers could take right away. In particular, they are pushing for changes in the procedural rules of the Legislature to loosen the tight control of the leadership and give rank-and-file lawmakers and the public more opportunities to influence decisions. This group is rallying behind a resolution floated by Assemblymen Scott Stringer of Manhattan and Sam Hoyt of Buffalo, based on recommendations from New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. The resolution is now endorsed by two dozen of their colleagues in the Democratic majority.

Proponents of this approach point out that each house of the Legislature can effect these changes acting on its own – which avoids the potential for gridlock-inducing disagreements between the Assembly, the Senate, and the governor. Also, the Assembly and Senate have no choice but to adopt some set of rules at the outset of their two-year session, which means delay is not an option.

“It’s a real sort of litmus test,” a spokesman for the Brennan Center, Scott Schell, said last week. “The Assembly and Senate have to adopt new rules by January 5th. Let’s see what they do.”

Mr. Stringer makes the case that changing the rules of the Legislature could pave the way for bigger changes down the road.

“Rules reform is the first step toward redistricting reform and campaign finance reform,” he said. “Rules reform will make Albany more transparent. It’s not the be-all and end-all, but it’s the first step.”

Even if they can overcome their differences on substance and strategy, however, reform proponents ultimately face an even bigger obstacle: the politicians’ instinct for self-preservation.

Although torch-carrying reformers chased half a dozen incumbents out of office, and threw a scare into a few more, they left the vast majority of the Legislature entirely unscathed. In a year of unprecedented anger at Albany, 51 legislators coasted to re-election without facing major-party opposition.

Apart from the few insurgents taking office in January, most members of the Legislature have thrived in the present system – which is, after all, designed in large part to protect incumbents – and they may view even the subtlest tinkering with the rules as dangerously destabilizing.

And the message of November 2 wasn’t necessarily crystal clear. The same electorate that voted to diminish the Republican majority in the Senate by three or four seats also endorsed the status quo in the Assembly, adding one seat to the already dominant 103-47 Democratic majority.

Speaker Silver could take this outcome as a vote of confidence rather than a demand for change on his part. And Mr. Bruno could interpret his losses as reflecting the increasingly Democratic drift of New York’s electorate rather than any specific commentary on the procedures of the Senate.

Indeed, Senate Republicans, with their majority in serious jeopardy for the first time in four decades, will have to consider the pros and cons of reform carefully.

One proposed rule change, for example, would make it easier for minority lawmakers to force bills out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. If granted this concession, Senate Democrats would undoubtedly use it to pin Republicans down on issues that make them squirm, such as gun control and abortion rights.

For Mr. Bruno and his Republican colleagues, the advantage of protecting their members from those awkward votes could well outweigh the disadvantage of being called obstacles to reform.