11.   He has endorsed Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and voted for a bill to take rent protections away from luxury apartments.

12.   Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has said he does not see any need to weaken rent protections now.

13.   Ms. Mucha noted that Assembly Democrats had also sent out state-financed letters extolling the new rent law, which extends most rent protections for another six years.

14.   Pataki has also proposed an expansion of luxury decontrol, the program that has removed rent protections for some wealthy tenants.

15.   Publicly, the politicians speak of all or nothing, of killing rent protections entirely or preserving them for all.

16.   Republican officials generally support abolishing or reducing rent protections, while Democrats usually want to preserve them.

17.   The officials once had these powers only for apartments under rent stabilization, the less stringent form of rent protection.

18.   The proposal would also affect a policy known as luxury decontrol, under which rent protections are lifted from wealthier tenants.

19.   They said that despite promises from Pataki and Bruno, elderly tenants had every reason to worry that their rent protections would eventually be eroded.

20.   Though his group would support expanding those programs, he said they still would want to end most rent protections.