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ALBANY For the better part of four years, the relationship between the out-of-power Senate Democrats and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has been a lot like that bounce-back clown punching bag.

Cuomo would punch, the senators would fall down, and then, like the bop bag, bounce back up for more.

No longer, Senate Democrats say. They have seen their future, and it does not rest with the Democratic governor.

Whether the public chill lasts is not known, but Democrats say they will have to think twice before doing any legislative favors for Cuomo.

Its clear that there is not a desire on the executives part to be inclusive of the opinion of Senate Democrats, said Sen. Michael N. Gianaris, D-Queens.

Even though they are in the minority, Senate Democrats provided the votes Cuomo needed in his first term to get two signature laws through the Senate: legalizing same-sex marriage and sharply expanding gun control.

Yet they have never felt Cuomos love. In 2012, he broke an earlier campaign promise to improve the way in which legislative district boundaries are drawn once a decade, a process that has helped the GOP keep control of the Senate.

Most observers would agree that our conference has bent over backwards to work with the governor of our own party the last couple of years, but if its clear that our voices are going to be shut out of the process, we will find other ways to express our priorities, Gianaris said.

In recent weeks, with state budget talks underway, Senate Democrats say Cuomo snubbed them by failing to invite Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, of Westchester County, into the closed-door negotiations.

Members of the minority party are not usually a part of those talks. Albanys long history of three-men in a room is now four men in a room, featuring Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, D-Bronx; Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos, R-Rockville Centre; and Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein, D-Bronx, leader of the Senates Independent Democratic Conference.

Excerpt from:
Senate Democrats distance themselves from Cuomo