The Erie County Legislature’s emboldened Republican caucus has opened its collective heart to a marriage of convenience with a Democrat willing to be made chairman in exchange for certain considerations.

The six Republicans who will populate the Legislature’s ranks come January are willing to throw their support behind a Democratic chairman or chairwoman who lets GOP reform ideas come to a vote.

Political realities also dictate that it be a Democrat acceptable to Republican County Executive Chris Collins, who wants current Chairwoman Lynn M. Marinelli, D-Town of Tonawanda, replaced.

Collins sees her as someone who squelches change. She sees him as a power-hungry politician who wants no one standing in his way.

“I have talked to every one of our members,” said Republican lawmaker Raymond W. Walter of Amherst. “And we are absolutely united on someone who would let us get our reform measures to the floor. They don’t have to support the measures themselves—just as long as we get to vote on them.”

The measures: Cut legislators’ base salary of $42,588 a year; eliminate district offices; shrink the Legislature from 15 members to at least 11; enact a recall provision for poor conduct.

Marinelli looks like a distant long shot. She is not only out of favor with the Collins camp, she has yet to gain traction within her own Democratic caucus. But there are several weeks left before the Legislature reorganizes in January.

The nine Democrats who will form the Legislature’s largest bloc of votes next year have the numbers to place one of their own into the chairmanship without GOP help. But the same fault lines that divide Erie County’s Democratic Party extend to the County Legislature’s Democratic caucus.

Republicans know of the Democrats’ famous divisions and their likely inability to unite behind one person. So the Republicans are chatting up one of these Democrats for the position: Thomas J. Mazur of Cheektowaga or Barbara Miller- Williams of Buffalo.

With six Republican votes, Mazur or Miller-Williams would need to produce only one other Democratic vote, plus their own, to become the Legislature’s leader.

The leader controls the hiring and firing of the Legislature’s staff, which doubles as a campaign work force as needed, and rewards friendly members by letting them lead, or sit on, the committees they want. The chairwoman or chairman controls the flow of business, determines the bills worthy of public hearings and frustrates progress on them as desired.

In 2010, the Legislature chairman or chairwoman will lead the review of the 2011 budget, viewed as one of the most difficult facing Erie County since the 2005 debacle. With the federal stimulus money that helps support the Medicaid program scheduled to run out, the county government faces a potential $50 million deficit.

“I am seriously considering it,” Miller-Williams said recently in describing her interest in becoming Legislature chairwoman. She said she is open to Republican support and mentioned she was one of the Democrats who voted with Republicans in 2008 to install Marinelli when her internal re-election effort stalled.

Miller-Williams said she recently held off Marinelli when the chairwoman sought her support for 2010 and did the same with Legislator Maria R. Whyte of Buffalo when Whyte told her she would like to return as Democratic majority leader next year.

“I am not a proponent of keeping leadership in their positions for the sake of keeping them there,” she said.

Miller-Williams works as a Buffalo police officer and serves in the U. S. Army Reserve, but she is in the process of retiring from the police force and says the time required for the Reserve is small.

She represents District 3 on Buffalo’s East Side. She does not generally favor efforts to downsize the Legislature. She is linked to the Democratic machinery run by Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown and Deputy Mayor Steve Casey.

The mayor and county executive have forged a political alliance that rests on their mutual opposition to Democratic Party headquarters and Chairman Leonard Lenihan.

The third player in the Collins-Brown bond is political mastermind G. Steven Pigeon. Largely to help spoil things for party headquarters, Pigeon was willing to help certain Collins-supported candidates secure the valuable Independence Party line this year.

Several players with insight into the selection process for Legislature leader say Collins, Brown and Pigeon also find Mazur acceptable. Mazur tried in the past to become chairman but came away frustrated by Lenihan’s refusal to support him.

Mazur ranks as one of the Legislature’s most liberal members. But conflicts with liberals bolster Collins with his conservative base.

Mazur has an image as someone affable and always willing to communicate, even with persistent adversaries.

A Vietnam War veteran, Mazur taught at Erie Community College for several years and is in his second stint as a county legislator. He served as a legislator from 1988 to 1993, then returned in 2006 after the mid-decade budget meltdown. So he has more seniority than every lawmaker except Marinelli.

Mazur sees Collins as a wealthy suburbanite out of touch with urban needs. He protested when Collins took the county out of the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. With Miller-Williams, he is among the lawmakers trying to block the Collins transfer of health services from county-run clinics to the Sheehan Health Network, a flash point with the 2010 budget.

Mazur, while not opposed to Republican support, said he would rather secure the title within the Democratic caucus.

“If people want a change in leadership, that has to be banged out — in the room,” he said, referring to a room in which next year’s nine Democratic lawmakers would select a chairman or chairwoman. “We still have nine votes,” he said, “and it should be up to the Democrats to choose.”

Collins and the Republicans can play a second hand in determining the chairman: Let the Legislature remain leaderless beyond the end-of-January deadline, and that lets the county executive then appoint someone.

“I think that is a ridiculous way to select the Legislature’s leadership,” Marinelli said.