ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s embattled nominee to become New York State’s top judge was rejected on Wednesday by a key State Senate panel, the first time that New York lawmakers have rebuffed a governor’s choice for chief judge.

After a combative hourslong hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly voted against the confirmation of Justice Hector D. LaSalle, whose nomination has provoked an intense backlash from progressives who see him as too moderate.

The committee’s rejection escalated a divisive intraparty clash that has roiled the State Capitol ever since Ms. Hochul made her choice for chief judge, who in addition to leading the Court of Appeals also runs the state’s vast and complex court system.

The 19-member committee voted 10 to 9 against moving Justice LaSalle to a full vote on the Senate floor. All 10 who voted against the judge were Democrats; two Democrats voted in favor of Justice LaSalle, while one Democrat and all six Republicans voted in favor “without recommendation.”

The move was a remarkable rebuke of Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat, by members of her own party, but the rejection does not necessarily mean that the LaSalle saga is over. The governor has not ruled out taking legal action to force a vote of Justice LaSalle on the full Senate floor, raising the specter of a high-stakes constitutional showdown.

The fight over the chief judge nomination, usually a noncontentious ordeal, has quickly emerged as the most consequential political challenge of Ms. Hochul’s first full term after being elected in November. The quarrel has set her against more progressive Democrats in the State Senate, testing her relationship with lawmakers as she begins to push her recently unveiled policy agenda in Albany.

Justice LaSalle, who was vying to become the first Latino chief judge, always faced an uphill climb. His nomination in December was immediately opposed by several unions, reproductive rights groups and community organizations, which pointed to cases that they said revealed he was anti-union and anti-abortion.

A large contingent of Democrats in the State Senate had already said they opposed him — many others raised their objections in private — with many arguing that the judge’s elevation would help perpetuate the court’s conservative tilt.

In his first public remarks since emerging as a political flashpoint, Justice LaSalle sought on Wednesday to dispel what he said were unfair characterizations of his judicial record, vowing to “set the record straight.”

“I only ask that this body look at my entire record, not just the record that certain advocates have chosen to look at,” Justice LaSalle said in an unusually crowded legislative hearing room, arguing that some of his cases had been the target of “mischaracterization simply to derail my nomination.”

Quizzed by lawmakers about his judicial philosophy, Justice LaSalle argued that many of the cases that had been singled out had hinged on procedural questions, and did not necessarily reflect his underlying beliefs on larger bellwether issues involving union rights and abortion.

Indeed, citing his upbringing in a union and working-class household, Justice LaSalle repeatedly leaned on his personal life story, casting his judicial career as one centered on breaking down barriers affecting marginalized communities.

“When you talk about labor, those are the people that raised me,” Justice LaSalle said, describing how he walked “the picket line with my abuela.”

He also reaffirmed his belief in a woman’s right to abortion services, saying, “I do not want my daughter to have fewer rights than her mother.”

Justice LaSalle is the presiding justice of the Appellate Division of the Second Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court, which handles civil and criminal appeals from Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Westchester County and a half-dozen other counties.

He was considered among the more moderate potential nominees from a list of seven candidates that Ms. Hochul was given to choose from by a special commission as she looked to replace Janet DiFiore, who resigned last year.

Even with the committee’s rejection of Justice LaSalle, there’s a chance that the clash over his nomination could end up in the courts. The governor and some of her supporters have argued that a committee vote is irrelevant and that, in their view, her nominee must be subject to a full vote on the Senate floor.

“I’m willing to do everything I need to do to get it through the committee,” Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat, said last week when asked if she was considering suing after she raised questions about the constitutional process for appointing judges.

A floor vote could arguably favor Ms. Hochul, who would have greater flexibility to cobble together enough votes from Democrats and even some Republicans in the minority to confirm Justice LaSalle.

The State Constitution says that a governor must make judicial appointments with the “advice and consent of the Senate.” Ms. Hochul, and some legal experts, have interpreted that to mean that the entire Senate, not just a committee, must vote on her nominee.

Senate Democrats, as well as other legal experts, argue that the Senate has the authority to determine its own rules and procedures to consider judicial nominations, especially since the Constitution does not explicitly say a nomination must be voted on by the full State Senate.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” said Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia University and an expert on state constitutional law.

Many Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about a 2015 defamation case where Justice LaSalle and a majority of the appellate court held that while state law prohibits companies from suing unions and their representatives for labor-related activities, such lawsuits are allowed if companies can show that the representatives were acting in their personal capacity.

“Any suggestion that I’m anti-union or anti-labor is absolutely untrue,” Justice LaSalle said, adding that he “agreed full heartedly with the concept that big business should not be using litigation to chill the voices of organized labor.”

In his line of questioning, State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat from Manhattan who chairs the Judiciary Committee, sought to tie Justice LaSalle to Ms. DiFiore, who was reviled by many Democrats, noting cases in which she had reached the same conclusion as Justice LaSalle.

Mr. Hoylman-Sigal also questioned the judge on instances where he had sided with the prosecution, saying that “it would seem to me that one could make the claim that you lean toward prosecution and against civil rights.”

Justice LaSalle said he “did not recognize the person” that his opponents had made him out to be, saying that he understood “what people deal with every day in the U.S., with police engagements, with the law.”

Other lawmakers asked Justice LaSalle about a unanimous opinion he joined in 2017 that ordered the New York attorney general to narrow a subpoena issued to the operator of anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers.” The case had led to accusations that Justice LaSalle was hostile to abortion rights.

“Based on your record, I think that it’s not unfair for people to project what some of your decisions might be,” State Senator John Liu, a Democrat from Queens, said, raising concerns about the case. Mr. Liu underscored the significance of the chief judge nomination process by stressing the importance of state courts as a bulwark against federal courts overturning years of precedent on a number of high-profile issues like abortion.

On Wednesday, Justice LaSalle said he strongly believed in “a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions,” arguing that the case in question actually centered on prosecutorial overreach.

Justice LaSalle appeared to receive a far warmer reception from Republicans on the committee, many of whom said that he had been treated unfairly, portraying his confirmation process as intensely politicized. State Senator Anthony H. Palumbo, a Republican from Long Island, told the judge that Justice LaSalle represented “the embodiment, in my opinion, of the American dream.”

Despite pressure on her to withdraw her nomination, the governor has forcefully defended Justice LaSalle in recent days, stressing the need for Latino representation at the top levels of state government and arguing that he has been “so horribly maligned based on a handful of cherry-picked cases.”

Over the weekend, the governor was joined at a rally in the Bronx by a cohort of top Democrats, including Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the U.S. House minority leader, who spoke in favor of Justice LaSalle, a former prosecutor of Puerto Rican descent.

Indeed, the opposition from the left has led Ms. Hochul to possibly rely on Republicans — who sit in the minority of both chambers of the New York Legislature — some of whom expressed bewilderment on Wednesday at the casting of Justice LaSalle as a right-leaning judge.

“You do not come off as a right-wing conservative nut,” said Senator Andrew Lanza, a Republican from Staten Island.

Beginning the hearing, Mr. Hoylman-Sigal said that Justice LaSalle would receive a fair hearing, but that the questions about his record would be “exacting,” considering the high stakes — and responsibilities — of the chief judge’s job.

Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Jesse McKinley

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