Andrew Cuomo

Seneca Nation of Indians President Barry Snyder criticized Gov. Andrew Cuomo for “playground bully tactics” for his handling of an ongoing dispute over the nation’s contract.

Cuomo maintains the Seneca Nation has a contract with the state that is “not in good standing” and argues $500 million is owed in exclusivity payments.

The governor and the Oneida Nation announced Thursday it had reached a sweeping land claims deal that removed the central New York region from one that could be bid on for a new commercially run casino should a constitutional amendment pass.

Cuomo has said the state won’t honor contracts with either the Seneca or the Mohawk-St. Regis nation in the North Country when it comes to citing casnios. He wants to build three casinos north of New York City, but the Seneca operate within an exclusivity zone.

Yesterday’s agreement with the Oneida created an exclusivity region for Turning Stone casino and a revenue-sharing deal with the state and local governments.

“Yesteray we all witnessed another symptom of the unfortunately strained relationship the Seneca Nation of Indians has with Governor Andrew Cuomo. yet again he has chosen a path of playground bully tactics rather than one of maturity, dignity and mutual respect,” Snyder said in a statement.

In a radio interview this morning with The Capitol Pressroom, Cuomo said the “ball is their court” when it comes to striking a deal with the state and resolve the ongoing disputes.

“I’ve said to both of them, it’s up to them,” Cuomo said. “It’s really the ball is there court. No one has made an effort to try to settle.”

Not surprisingly, Republicans aren’t pleased with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s comment today that it would be the “height of hypocrisy” if lawmakers failed to pass the women’s agenda in the wake of the Vito Lopez sexual harassment scandal.

New York GOP spokesman David Laska sent over this statement in response:

“Out of one side of his mouth, Andrew Cuomo calls for Vito Lopez’s resignation. Out of the other, he calls for public financing for campaigns.

“The height of hypocrisy is for Andrew Cuomo to claim to support women’s rights while asking New York’s women to spend their tax dollars on reelecting serial sex abuser Vito Lopez and his enabler Sheldon Silver. If the Governor were serious about protecting women, he would join us in calling for Silver to resign as Speaker.”

Cuomo called on members of the Assembly to expel Lopez in the wake of a JCOPE report detailing allegations of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by the Brooklyn Democrat toward legislative aides.

Cuomo did not call for the resigation of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in the case, arguing that wasn’t his role to say who should be in charge of the chamber. Earlier in the day Republican Chairman Ed Cox called on Silver to resign as speaker, a post he’s held for 1994.

The women’s agenda includes measures to strengthen domestic abuse laws and discrimination in the workplace and in housing. But Republicans are balking at an effort to enhance abortion rights through what Cuomo says is a codification of Roe versus Wade.

Not passing his 10-point women’s agenda in the wake of the Vito Lopez sexual harassment would be the “height of hypocrisy,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this afternoon in a Red Room question-and-answer session.

“I think it would be the height of hypocrisy for a body that just recognized the problem up close and personal within their own colleagues and to not take action,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo this afternoon called for the resignation of Lopez, adding that if the he doesn’t — and Lopez has given no indication he’ll do that — the Democratic-led chamber should begin proceedings to expel him.

The women’s agenda is most discussed in terms of the provision that Cuomo says would codify the Roe versus Wade decision, but opponents believe will expand abortion rights to an uncomfortable degree.

But the agenda — which is yet to be released in bill form — also includes measures aimed at curbing violence against women, discrimination in housing and the workforce and human trafficking.

The governor told reporters at the Q-and-A that changes need to be made to the procedure for handling sexual harassment claims in the Assembly.

“Whatever procedures they have have to be dramatically reformed because this can’t be allowed to happen again,” Cuomo said.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is fending off calls for resignation — mostly from Republicans and editorial boards — after the report was released that showed he pushed early on for a confidential settlement with Lopez’s victims.

Cuomo didn’t want to weigh in on whether Silver should resign. But he agreed that the situation was poorly handled and mismanaged by the Assembly leadership.

“I think people have the right to expect, change the rules so this doesn’t happen again or change the rules the best you can to prevent it from happening again,” Cuomo said.

The Lopez scandal — along with the graphic details involving young women working in government – was especially personal for him as a father, Cuomo said.

“I have three young daughters who would love to work in the government, volunteer in government so I relate from that way also,” he said.

From the morning memo:

With a scandal-scarred Legislature choosing to stay home this week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had the Albany spotlight virtually to himself this week.

Cuomo clearly does not want the myriad scandals — ranging from a trio of arrests to the lurid details of Vito Lopez’s sexual harassment of legislative aides — to bog down the remaining weeks of the session while there’s still so much to do.

So instead of letting the press focus on corruption and scandal, Cuomo distinctly wanted to tell a different story.

This week so far he’s held three public events at the Capitol. It’s not necessarily rare for him to make himself so visible, but with both the Senate and Assembly largely empty, Cuomo can control the story coming out of the Capitol.

On Monday, Cuomo took to the Red Room to talk about the privatization of the Long Island Power Authority. On Tuesday, he talked budget restructuring on the local level. And on Wednesday, it was an economic development roundtable.

The governor seemed downright hesitant to even address scandal on Monday, asking reporters, “Do you really want to talk about this?”

Of course, there’s a downside to focusing on decidedly vanilla topics.

When the disturbing details of the Lopez sexual harassment case was made public through the release of a 70-page Joint Commission on Public Ethics report on Wednesday, the Capitol press corp largely stayed on the third floor, while Cuomo conducted an economic development council presentation on the second floor (that’s not to say the event wasn’t covered, and in fact some local press upstate picked up the event).

Cuomo’s argument for success as governor has been leading a government that functions. Sure, the details may be a bit messy, but the bar has been set so low in Albany with missed budget deadlines and deals on needed legislation that fall apart, sometimes just going about the routine can help.

And in large part, Cuomo is lucky that the scandals — so far — have not threatened the order of things at the Capitol.

Yes, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was a key player in the Lopez case and yesterday’s report outlined how Manhattan Democrat and his top aides feared the media fallout from the scandal almost immediately, which ultimately drove the effort to keep the settlement a secret.

But so far, Silver has not been publicly challenged by any of his rank-and-file conference members for his handling of the case after he admitted mistakes were made last summer.

In the Senate, the arrests have so far focused on Democratic lawmakers (though a story from Bloomberg News found Tom Libous, the number two Republican lawmaker in the Senate GOP may have some trouble on the horizon).

At any rate, the scandals don’t threaten how things get done at the Capitol or upend the status quo for now.

To be sure, Cuomo is still pushing a variety of anti-corruption measures and a bill designed to strengthen anti-bribery laws. But that is only a subset to a broader agenda that he’s been pushing since January with major provisions like public financing and enhancing abortion laws that has largely stalled.

Cuomo, still, seems to be seeking to turn the page in his own right at the Capitol as he tries to not make it distraction, telling reporters, “I think it’s basically irrelevant unless you allow it to become relevant.”