ALBANY -- When trouble surfaced in mid-March for a major expansion plan for the University at Buffalo, the Legislature's top Republican called a reporter down to his Capitol office.

During that everything-is-fine gathering, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos made certain to have freshman Sen. Mark Grisanti, a Buffalo Republican and sponsor of the UB legislation, sitting by his side.

A couple of months later, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo convened a public meeting on the UB matter, Republicans got Grisanti seated a couple of chairs down from the governor during the high-profile meeting of the Capitol's ruling elite in the Red Room.

And in the hours before lawmakers this spring voted on a bad-news state budget with deep cutbacks, there was Grisanti outside the Senate chamber, holding a list in his hand with $1.3 million worth of state spending he got earmarked for various popular parks and cultural facilities in the Buffalo area.

So goes the new life of Mark Grisanti, who until January had never held an elected office and overnight found himself thrust into the 100-mph world of Albany -- with all its political twists and intrigue.

In a building where freshman lawmakers are often told to just watch, Grisanti has been given considerable attention by his fellow Republicans.

The reasons: 2010 and 2012.

Without Grisanti's upset victory last fall over former Democratic Sen. Antoine Thompson, Republicans would not have retaken the Senate in January.

But beyond gratitude is a fact Republicans know well: Grisanti is the Legislature's most marginal member, which in Albanyspeak means he represents a district that does not lean in his partisan direction. In Grisanti's case, the 60th Senate District, which stretches from Buffalo to Grand Island to parts of Niagara Falls, is home to 104,000 Democrats and just 22,000 Republicans.

Those numbers scare Republicans, who want to keep hold of the Senate in the 2012 elections and who fear Grisanti, and their grip on power, is a temporary blip.

Enter the Protect Grisanti session of 2011.

"I think that they are grateful that I had this victory and helped them get into the majority," Grisanti said when asked if he has felt propped up by Senate Republicans in his first legislative session.

Grisanti, 46, is a former Democrat, and he faces running next year in a district that his Republican allies hope will be redrawn in a more politically favorable way in the upcoming redistricting process.

While political protection explains some of the churning around Grisanti at the Capitol, his colleagues -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- say Grisanti has quickly earned respect as a studious legislator who is not shy about speaking up in closed-door sessions when politics and legislation get discussed.

"My own interaction with him has been very good. His concerns are my concerns," said Senate Democratic Minority Leader John Sampson of Brooklyn.

Sampson did note what he called the "coincidence" of the Senate this year passing Grisanti's "UB 2020" with help from the same Republican senators who last year helped kill the UB effort when the Democrats were in control. The UB matter is still being negotiated.

Republicans say that, while they are certainly aware of Grisanti's political needs given his district and his freshman status, the Buffalo Republican's style and substance has helped his cause. "I think people view him as a guy who knows what he's doing and is serious, and that helps in your ability to be effective if you are taken seriously, and he certainly is," said Sen. Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican.

In his first six months, Grisanti has been a study in contrasts. Of his 486 votes so far, he has voted against only three bills: measures extending sales tax rates in Erie and Niagara counties and a bill strengthening penalties for aggravated harassment of a police officer.

Grisanti's own portfolio of bill introductions -- 99 since Jan. 1 -- also offers a mixed political portrait. Some are tough-on-crime measures. But after two decades as a criminal defense lawyer, Grisanti's bill record reflects that job, which he still holds on the side: a bill to relax penalties for getting caught with small amounts of marijuana and his "Coerced Confession Remediation Act" that allows wrongfully convicted people to sue the state for damages and provide more money to the New York State Defenders Association to represent poor people.

Grisanti, who said he opposes gay marriage rights, has sent enough signals on the controversial measure that he is still considered a possible yes vote by gay rights groups if the bill comes to the floor in the final days of the session.

The lawmaker holds the visible chairmanship of the Environmental Conservation Committee, which puts him in the front row over the still-unresolved debate over hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region. He said his final position will be shaped by an upcoming study by the state's environmental agency, though he is pushing a bill to make the waste produced in the hydrofracking process subject to the same regulations as other hazardous waste in New York.

Grisanti knows his tightrope: pushing pro-environment bills while also representing a district with jobs in a number of big industrial facilities.

"There is a conflict there, but like anything, you learn to balance," he said.

The lawmaker's bills run the gamut: banning the trading of bear gallbladders and the taking of striped bass from the Hudson River for commercial purposes to expanding instruction of the "understanding and acceptance" of people with disabilities in public schools and permitting advertising on school buses. He wants to ban Medicaid benefits for people living in the state for less than a year, strengthen recycling laws and create a "bird-friendly" council to reduce the number of bird who fly into high-rise buildings.

"It's almost like I'm trying to find my way myself on certain issues, and it's a constant battle, because in your heart you feel one way and your mind is telling you another way," he said.

As on the gay marriage issue. On one hand, he does not personally favor same-sex marriage, but as a trial attorney he says he does not want to deny to gays legal rights that heterosexual couples enjoy. "You don't want to think as a Catholic senator," he said.

Environmental groups that deal routinely with Grisanti say the final week or so of the session will be key.

"To the extent that he can ram some of these bills through the Senate will be how he's seen as an effective chair[man]. At this point, I'm hopeful. He's a thoughtful guy, and he can make things happen," Dave Gahl, policy director at Environmental Advocates, said of several bills pending, including the one on hydrofracking waste and a measure regulating big water withdrawals from rivers and lakes.

"He's a marginal member. He has some special powers," Gahl said.

Grisanti, so far, has not fallen into the Albany trap that grooms politicians to provide non-answers to questions. The impact his marginal status had in getting big grants for his district this spring? "I think it played a huge role," he said.

Asked how often he goes to church after mentioning several times his Catholic faith, he said, "As often as I can. St. Rose at 10:30 Sunday. Unless if I gotta cut the grass [then] I gotta miss it."

On entering the world of fundraising? "I'm kind of a humble person, and I don't like asking people for money," he said. He's had two fundraisers since January that together raised about $25,000 -- one in Albany and the other in his district. He has turned down offers for fundraisers in New York City, a routine stop for politicians to bring in money.

Grisanti said there have been some surprises, like the amount of time he and his wife, Maria, found he was required to be in Albany. "I don't know if you want to call it ignorance or naivete, but I did not realize how much time I'd have to be leaving to go to Albany. I don't know what I thought," he said.

Grisanti says the new job demands have forced him to cut back his law firm work. He said he may have lost some clients, some with family ties back to when his grandfather started the Buffalo firm in 1912, but has been happy to give over some business to younger attorneys in the area.

"I suspect he'd be making more money if he was practicing law full time than what he's doing now. And being away from Buffalo and his family is a real challenge for him. He tells me about it regularly," said Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, a Buffalo Democrat. Grisanti's Senate district overlaps with about 90 percent of Hoyt's district.

Hoyt called Grisanti "refreshing."

"Partisan Democrats say to me, 'Why are you propping up Grisanti?' I don't care if he's Republican or Democrat. I have someone I can work with. I have a partner," Hoyt said of Grisanti.

Grisanti said he feels "privileged" to have his Senate post. But he said he did not run to make politics a career and will vote with either party if a bill is seen as helping or hurting his region.

"If I'm not here in two years I'm not here in two years," Grisanti said.

tprecious@buffnews.comnull