ALBANY — It took innumerable scandals, more than a dozen criminal convictions and a batch of whispered hints to a bewildered chairwoman, but one of the longest, most perplexing droughts in New York politics is over.

For the first time in eight years, the State Senate Committee on Ethics and Internal Governance held an actual public meeting on Thursday, ending a nearly decade-long slumber that began in 2009 under the former Ethics Committee chairman John L. Sampson. (Mr. Sampson apparently did not take his mission to heart: He was found guilty of corruption in 2015.)

The committee quickly showed its rust.

One senator, David Carlucci, a Democrat from the Hudson Valley, voted with a group of senators seeking to stop questionable stipend payments to his colleagues. But hours later, he tried to take it back.

“He regrets the error and confusion it caused,” Mr. Carlucci clarified through a spokeswoman.

When that motion led to a 4-4 stalemate, another senator, Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat from the Bronx, suggested that they break a tie with a coin flip. An awkward silence then ensued as the chairwoman of the committee, Senator Elaine Phillips, puzzled over the parliamentary rules, all while being periodically whispered to, Rasputin-like, by the Senate’s legal counsel, David Lewis.