State lawmakers will make public a sweeping new state ethics bill as early as today in an ”in your face” response to Gov. Paterson, who delivered a belligerent State of the State speech to lawmakers last Wednesday demanding passage of an ethics reform package.

One legislative leader said Paterson’s speech was as aggressive as it was ”because he knew that the Legislature was on the verge of reaching an agreement that he chose not to be a part of.”

The leader also said the reason Paterson had unleashed a bizarre attack on reform advocating ”good government groups” is because “those groups were part of the negotiations on the new ethics bill and he wasn’t.”

A spokesman for Senate Democratic Conference leader John Sampson, Austin Shafran, said last week that Paterson repeatedly rejected offers to participate in the negotiations for a new ethics bill.