A coalition comprising nearly every Democratic state lawmaker from New York City urged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in a letter yesterday to press for extending and tightening the state's rent regulation laws as part of the budget deal he is negotiating with the Legislature, according to an article by Nicholas Confessore in today's edition of The New York Times.

"If the state does not act, millions of working- and middle-class New Yorkers will be at immediate risk of losing their homes," warned the lawmakers, about 90 of whom signed the letter to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat. "We ask that you act boldly on tenants' behalf by requiring these reforms to be a part of any budget agreement."

The state budget is due at the end of March.

The rent regulations, which limit the rent that landlords can charge on more than one million apartments in New York City and its suburbs, are set to expire on June 15, raising fears that hundreds of thousands of tenants will face substantial rent increases and be forced to move.

Landlords, who have invested millions of dollars in lobbying state officials on rent regulation, have argued that the laws have discouraged them from investing in improvements to rental apartments and ultimately depress the supply of affordable apartments, the article said.

This month, it added, Mr. Cuomo rebuffed suggestions by tenant advocates that he include a rent-law extension in his amended executive budget, released on March 3.

"In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said that the governor was open to including rent regulations in his budget negotiations with the Legislature," the article continued, "a statement that stopped well short of Mr. Cuomo's pledging to make rent regulations a condition of any final deal."

The article said that "the letter to Mr. Cuomo reflects growing concerns among Democrats that they will find their backs against the wall should they be forced to negotiate an extender bill separately from the budget, as they did in 2003, the last time the laws faced expiration."

Then, the article added, "Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, and the Republican-controlled State Senate agreed to renew the laws, but they forced the Democratic-controlled Assembly to accept changes that tenant advocates believe have allowed landlords to start charging market rates on tens of thousands of formerly regulated apartments in recent years."

The rent regulations stand as a top priority of Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan and his fellow Assembly Democrats this legislative session and are backed by most Senate Democrats.

Scott Reif, a spokesman for Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, the Senate Republican leader, said that the Senate was focused on the budget and that there was enough time to tackle rent laws afterward.

In interviews, the article said that some Democrats who signed the letter to the governor said they expected the budget process to end not in a three-way deal with Mr. Cuomo and the Senate, but rather with Mr. Cuomo using his emergency powers to force the Legislature to vote on his budget proposal or risk shutting down the government.

"We think there's an endgame here that the governor's going to put out language in place that neither house of the Legislature will be in a position to change," said Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat whose district includes Stuyvesant Town, a housing complex with thousands of rent-stabilized units. "And we believe that rent regulation needs to be part of that."

For Mr. Cuomo, the rent laws may offer an opportunity to mollify Democratic lawmakers who are uncomfortable with - and in some cases openly opposing - his cuts to education and health care spending, but without breaking his campaign pledges to rein in spending and oppose new taxes, the article said.