A measure that would allow New York state to move forward with renewing the Seneca Nation’s gaming compact will not advance in the state Assembly next week, Speaker Carl Heastie announced late Friday afternoon .
Heastie’s announcement caps a week of turmoil surrounding the proposal, as Rochester-area lawmakers and unions raised alarm over the pact’s potential to lead to a casino in the Rochester area.
Any casino near Rochester would be near a commercially operated casino in the Finger Lakes region, where workers are unionized. There would be no guarantee that a new casino in Rochester run by Seneca would be unionized by the powerful Hotel Trades Council.
“I believe the Seneca Nation deserves fair treatment,” Heastie wrote on Twitter. “However, the sentiment in the Assembly’s Monroe County delegation, along with the potential loss of union jobs, is troubling, and we cannot move forward with a vote on the compact at this time.”
The state Senate previously approved legislation this month to authorize the state to move forward with changes and renewal of the compact. But moving forward with the pact became increasingly untenable for Rochester-area Democrats in the state Legislature, who had complained that they were being kept in the dark about the details of the deal negotiated by members of the administration. Governor Kathy Hochul.
Hochul has publicly recused herself from the negotiations because of her husband, Bill Hochul, as an executive at Delaware North, a concessions company with ties to Seneca Nation casino competitors.
