ALBANY – Senator Joseph Bruno has a message for any Republican who is thinking of running for statewide office in New York next year: Run it by me first.

Mr. Bruno, in his first public appearance at the state Capitol since June, took advantage of a slow morning here to gather the press corps around a podium and remind reporters of his enduring importance as majority leader of the Senate. The question of Mr. Bruno’s after-session relevance arose when he was asked about a possible 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate, William Weld.

“I’ve never heard from him,” Mr. Bruno said with obvious pique. “I don’t have a clue as to what he’s doing, or what he’s about, or where he lives, and, you know, if I haven’t heard from him, he’s not going to hear from me.”

Mr. Weld, a Republican who won two terms as governor of Massachusetts, has expressed an interest in being the governor of his native New York ever since leaving the Boston statehouse for a Manhattan law firm five years ago. His name resurfaced as a potential candidate this spring and has circulated with greater intensity since Governor Pataki said early this month that he will not pursue a fourth term next year. Mr. Weld is expected to attend a meeting of county Republican leaders at Rockland County September 8 to discuss his plans.

But he has already made some early missteps.

The New York Post reported yesterday that the socially liberal Mr. Weld is among the lead sponsors of a dinner this weekend for Long Island’s largest gay rights organization. The chairman of the state’s politically powerful Conservative Party, Michael Long, told the newspaper Mr. Weld’s sponsorship of the event is the “wrong move” for someone looking for Republican or Conservative Party endorsement.

Snubbing Mr. Bruno, a 76-year-old political powerhouse who teamed up with the speaker of the state Assembly, Sheldon Silver, to kill a proposed Jets stadium earlier this year despite aggressive lobbying on the other side by Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Pataki, could also prove damaging. Pressed yesterday to expand on his impression of Mr. Weld, the Rensselaer Republican signaled he would need a little sweet talk to heal the wound.

Asked why he seemed unenthusiastic about Mr. Weld, Mr. Bruno shot back: “Listen, I’m the majority leader, humbly. … If you were thinking of running for governor in New York State, would you make a phone call?” Mr. Bruno then turned to his communications director, John McArdle, and asked: “Has he called you? No. He doesn’t call me. Have others called me? Yeah, they have.”

Mr. Bruno’s brief, midsummer display of political force was not limited to the role he expects to play in vetting candidates. The original purpose of his press conference was to take a swipe at New York’s two Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Bruno said Senators Clinton and Schumer should be working harder to increase the federal portion of New York’s Medicaid spending.

The state will spend $44 billion of a $106 billion budget this year on the entitlement program, half of which will come from the federal government. Thirty-seven states get a match greater than 50%, with some, such as Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia, getting 75% or more. New York spends far more on Medicaid than any other state and more than the nation’s two most populous states, California and Texas, combined.

Mr. Bruno said New York’s Medicaid spending could be reduced by $8.7 billion if Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton pressed for an increase in federal matching funds and if the state’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, who is front-runner for the 2006 Democratic nomination for governor, did more to pursue fraud.

“The attorney general, who is out there seeking office, he is in charge primarily of getting cheats and frauds out of the system, and you know he’s got a start on it but he’s nowhere near getting it done,” Mr. Bruno said.

A spokesman for Mr. Spitzer said Mr. Bruno was playing politics.

“For five years, we’ve been urging the Senate to act on two bills that we have that would increase fraud recoveries and they haven’t acted on them,” the spokesman, Darren Dopp, said. “It now strikes us as a baldly partisan attack for them to point the finger at us.”

Among the “six or seven” potential Republican candidates for governor who have consulted with the Senate majority leader are four state senators from Long Island. One, Kenneth LaValle of Port Jefferson, said: “The majority leader is probably, next to the governor, the most important Republican in the state. I think if you’re interested in running, you’ve got to go and talk to people. And the majority leader should be high on that list.”

Mr. Weld did not return calls seeking comment.