Democratic and Republican State Senate leaders are now waiting for a judge to decide on a power-sharing agreement, after failing to come to a deal themselves in a closed-door meeting Monday.

State Supreme Court Judge Thomas McNamara is expected to rule Tuesday on whether the State Senate was in active session when Republicans staged their power grab last week.

Meanwhile, in a separate legal action, Democrats are seeking to hold the temporary president of the Senate, Pedro Espada, in contempt of court for holding a short session Monday.

Espada was one of two Democrats who sided with Republicans to give them the majority last week. The other was Hiram Monserrate, who now says he'll vote with the party again, which now creates a 31-to-31 deadlock -- a split that is all the more complicated because there is no lieutenant governor, who would typically break the tie.

"Under the circumstances of a 31-31 tie, nobody's going to have a quorum to begin a session at any moment, so there must be a power-sharing agreement for the Senate to operate," said Richard Emery, an attorney for Malcolm Smith. "That requires a lot of negotiations, a lot of give and take between the parties, and hopefully that's what's about to happen. The judge is looking forward to seeing progress on that front."

In an exclusive NY1 interview, Monserrate says he never stopped being a Democratic senator.

"I took one vote, and that was to change leadership in the State Senate. It was to remedy dysfunction in a system that was broken and not working," said Monserrate.

Senator Malcolm Smith, meanwhile, says he maintains his title as Majority Leader.

Monserrate only agreed to rejoin the Democratic conference on a key demand that Smith, in essence, be replaced as head of the party.

Senator John Sampson of Brooklyn was given the title of leader of the Democratic conference.

"We had a vote," said Smith. "We voted for John Sampson to be our leader for day-to-day business. As you know, any business or corporate structure where you have a chairman, you have a CEO. You can look at John Sampson as the CEO."

Sampson said he is ready to work with Republicans to put the Senate back to work.

Over in the State Assembly, Speaker Sheldon Silver says lawmakers in his house are focused on legislation, not Albany politics.

The speaker says he will not keep lawmakers around for extra time while state senators fight over control.

A spokesman for Silver says he will let his members leave Albany for summer recess next week as scheduled if senators do not resolve their dispute. State lawmakers are set to end their current session next Tuesday, June 22nd.

The spokesman says Silver is focused on passing legislation.

The spokesman says Silver can call the Assembly back to the state Capitol if the Senate stays past the June 22nd recess date.

If senators remain in Albany alone, they can either accept the Assembly's version of several bills or vote no, leaving them up in the air until the full Legislature returns.