ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo’s honeymoon with state Senate Republicans is on the rocks.
Cuomo threatened political war yesterday against Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos of Long Island — after two years of relative harmony — if Republicans don’t embrace the governor’s agenda next year as part of the Senate’s new ruling coalition.
Skelos, who lost his GOP majority in last month’s elections pending recounts in two upstate races, balked this week at joining his new “independent” Democratic-coalition partners in raising the minimum wage, enacting campaign-finance reform and decriminalizing minor pot possession during NYPD stop-and-frisks.
“If that’s true, then we’re going to have a problem, and we’re going to have a problem sooner rather than later,” Democrat Cuomo told The Post’s Fredric U. Dicker on Albany’s Talk 1300 AM radio.
“If Senator Skelos is opposed to the agenda of the people of the state, then I will oppose him . . . and I will be involved.”
Republicans, he added, “are wrong, and I will do everything in my power to get that agenda passed.”
Skelos this month agreed to the unprecedented power-sharing coalition with Sen. Jeff Klein of The Bronx, the leader of the five-member Independent Democratic Conference.
The two plan to decide jointly which bills to allow to go before lawmakers for a vote.
Klein has predicted the Senate will pass the heart of Cuomo’s agenda.
But Skelos said there have been “no decisions, no agreements” about what bills the new Senate will take up next year.
He also reiterated his concern about spending up to $200 million in taxpayer money on state elections as part of campaign-finance reform.
Skelos’ top deputy, Sen. Thomas Libous (R-Binghamton), went even further, calling the existing bill to increase the minimum wage “devastating to business” and questioning whether “taxpayers want to pay for campaigns.”
Libous told Gannett News Service that those bills “will be in a different form than what we presently see.”
Black leaders have criticized the coalition as disenfranchising 13 black and Hispanic senators, and they say Democrats should control the Senate outright if their party winds up with the majority of seats.
But a Quinnipiac University poll found voters disagreeing, with more preferring a bipartisan coalition than outright Democratic or Republican control.
Skelos’ spokesman, Scott Reif, said yesterday that “the people want Democrats and Republicans to work together to get results.
“If Senate Republicans have proven anything over the last two years, it’s that we can successfully work with Governor Cuomo to pass an agenda that benefits all New Yorkers,” he said.
Cuomo is also pushing for legalizing casino gambling, “protecting a woman’s right to choose” and “initiatives that address” climate change.
He said he’ll add even more initiatives to the list when he delivers his annual State of the State speech next month.
Sen. John Sampson of Brooklyn said last weekend he’d step aside as head of the Democratic Conference if party members united to create a Democratic majority.
Sampson also promised this week that he and his fellow Democrats would oppose watered-down versions of the bills Cuomo is promoting.
ekriss@nypost.com
Andy: It’s war if GOP blocks my agenda
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Andy: It’s war if GOP blocks my agenda
