Only people who have never been to Albany laugh at its nickname among the press and politicians: Sin City.
Every week during a legislative session that lasts from January to June and perhaps beyond, most of the state's 212 lawmakers leave their families to spend three or four days in Albany in an atmosphere that has increasingly become like that of a permanent political convention.
There are alcohol-laden fund-raisers, happy hours, after-hours parties and little else to do during the evenings in a town whose downtown has no movie theater but several loud, warehouse-size bars as well as other, more intimate settings. The conceit is that it is all unseen.
For years, the joke has been that the mostly male lawmakers and their hangers-on have clung to a secret code known as the Bear Mountain compact, whereby any liaisons with interns or young staff members that occur north of Bear Mountain Bridge, which spans the Hudson River between Orange and Westchester Counties, are not spoken about in the home districts in New York City or elsewhere.
But some people are thinking that the situation is nothing to laugh at anymore, as the State Legislature -- idle in performing government's most fundamental mission, passing a budget -- is once again on the defensive over contact between a legislative official and a younger and less powerful person of the opposite sex.
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This time Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, a member of the Democratic majority, finds himself at the center of an police investigation into a late-night encounter with a 19-year-old intern in a Howard Johnson's motel room near the capital.
Initially, the intern alleged that Mr. Powell, 42, gave her Scotch before ''she was forced to have sexual intercourse,'' according to the initial report from the Colonie Police Department.
Later, she gave detectives a seven-page statement detailing the events of the evening, including sexual activity, saying, in part, ''Adam did not rape me,'' according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. No charges have been filed, but the police say they are continuing to investigate.
Murray Richman, a lawyer for Mr. Powell, noted the contradictions in the woman's accounts and said of the matter, ''No wrongdoing had occurred.''
Last June, J. Michael Boxley, 44, who was the counsel to Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker and a Democrat, was taken out of the State Capitol in handcuffs and charged with raping a 22-year-old Assembly staff member after driving her home from Jillian's, an Albany nightspot, after a night of drinking.
Mr. Boxley -- who was also accused of sexually assaulting a former aide to a Republican assemblyman in 2001 -- pleaded guilty on Dec. 22 to sexual misconduct for his encounter with the staff member last June. He was sentenced to six years of probation and fined $1,000.
Elizabeth Crothers, the woman who accused Mr. Boxley in 2001, did not file a police complaint, and an investigation by an Assembly staff lawyer was terminated without any finding of guilt or innocence. In her view, the Powell and Boxley cases are very different. But, she said, there is an overall problem with the culture in Albany.
''Albany is a city where it's a culture of power much more than a culture of depravity,'' said Ms. Crothers, who was 23 when she came to Albany. ''There is very little respect for employees. Legislators and senior staff have somewhat of a superiority complex that staff is there to serve.''
Mr. Richman described an environment in which young women are invited to cocktail parties by those in power, who later feign shock at underage drinking.
Many lawmakers and others are worried that the Legislature has yet to learn any lessons from events that have shaken the political landscape in recent years, particularly the Clinton-Lewinsky episode.
''I just thought that people, maybe, had learned a very solid lesson by what happened in Washington several years ago, with interns,'' said Assemblywoman Sandra R. Galef, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Westchester and Putnam Counties. ''And you know, people don't seem to get it in Albany.''
Still, the political pressure swirling around such scandals is intense and fraught with emotion. Last year, after the incident involving Mr. Boxley, Assemblyman Charles H. Nesbitt, the Republican minority leader, said the incident made him sick. ''I just thought, 'Oh, how awful,''' he said. ''I mean, our worst fears.''
In a similar atmosphere, Mr. Silver, the speaker, said this week that his chamber's internship program, which had 155 undergraduates and 12 graduate students this year, was being examined as part of a wider review of Assembly practices so that new rules for interns could be developed to govern contact with lawmakers.
But Ms. Crothers said any revamping of the internship program, including one idea raised in Albany to ban fraternization between legislators and interns, was a ridiculous notion that would miss the point and penalize serious-minded interns. The real problem, she said, is that interns in distress are dealt with under the Assembly's sexual harassment policy, which she said was inadequate.
''It's a political entity, not some sort of neutral'' body, she said of the Assembly. ''I mean, where's a safe place to go if you have a problem?''
In the Senate, John E. McArdle, a spokesman for Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican majority leader, said the chamber was ''constantly reviewing and looking for ways to improve programs designed for employees, interns and senators.''
This year, as it has in the past, the Senate asked Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations to develop a two-hour workshop for senators on how to avoid sexual harassment, and the appearance of it, among other things.
With new interns arriving annually in the Senate, all of them students from a variety of state universities, ''We have not had these kind of reported problems,'' Mr. McArdle said. Sexual harassment awareness training for senators and staff members has been going on regularly for the last decade, he said. This year, the Senate has 32 interns.
But Senator Thomas K. Duane, a Manhattan Democrat, called the Senate's training inadequate, adding that it was often thought of as a joke. ''There was some inappropriate joking and laughing about it,'' he said of the recent training. ''Stuff you would hear in high schools or college fraternities.
''It is absolutely not funny,'' Mr. Duane continued, adding that he was tired of seeing authority used as weapon against the less powerful. Of the recent cases, he said, ''It is unprofessional and it is dangerous and it has set a terrible example for the rest of the state. It leads to ruined careers.''
Mr. Duane raised the issue in a March 30 letter to colleagues. In it, he called for serious bipartisan discussions on revamping each chamber's policies on sexual harassment. Ignoring the issue would risk the integrity of the Legislature, he said.
Mr. Duane's letter hit a nerve in Albany. But some interns said it would not keep them out of the capital. Frank Thompson, the dean of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, which sends 15 to 20 interns to Albany each year, said he would not be afraid to send more. His message to them, he said, was, ''Be prudent, but don't be afraid.''
And some lawmakers took issue with Senator Duane, warning against any rule to outlaw fraternization in light of recent events. Senator Ruben Diaz, a Democrat from the Bronx, wrote back to Mr. Duane on March 31, ''What gives us the right, as elected officials, to have the attitude of being almighty and up and above the level where we are not to fraternize with our lower staff members?''
And as others note, some people in Albany meet their significant others while working long hours on public policy, politics or other areas of common interest, as workplace romances are a natural outgrowth of modern life.
Some male legislators said the young female interns sometimes courted them.
''How many times can a man say no?'' one male lawmaker mused recently. ''I mean, I'm only human.''
But, turning serious, he added, ''When a young woman comes into my office, I make sure another person is in the room.''
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