In radio interviews, on social media and in hallways between meetings, lawmakers have been bombarded by questions about whether Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Senate Democrats, should be part of closed-door budget negotiations in the governor’s office.

Her absence has long been a point of contention: Democrats say she has been robbed of her seat by the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of eight Democrats who caucus with the Republicans, helping to give them control of the chamber. That point has been made especially stark this year, as discussions of how to crack down on sexual harassment in state government have taken center stage.

The four leaders steering the negotiations — Gov. Andrew Cuomo; the Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie; the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan; and the leader of the IDC, Jeffrey D. Klein — are all men.

The governor’s office has defended Stewart-Cousins’ exclusion, arguing that the finer details of policy are hammered out not by the “four men in a room,” but by an ancillary group of staff members, including a representative from her office. Cuomo seemed to suggest on Wednesday that the talks that unfold in the secretive leaders’ meetings would not significantly affect the shape of the final policy.

“We have a working group that’s doing the sexual harassment bill,” he said to reporters, adding that it was “basically made up of staff representatives.”

But Stewart-Cousins said in an interview on Wednesday that the governor’s remarks were the first time she had heard the words “working group” to describe the meetings between one of her staff members and the governor’s counsel, Alphonso David. Staff for the Democrat-dominated Assembly had sometimes also been present, she said, but never representatives of the Senate Republicans.

“My staff has been invited to be briefed,” she said, “not to be part of a quote-unquote working group.”

“This is calling my staff, explaining what they’ve decided,” she continued, suggesting that her representatives’ suggestions were routinely dismissed.

David disputed that idea, noting that negotiations sometimes involve rejecting others’ suggestions. He conceded, though, that there had never been a joint meeting of representatives from the Senate Republicans and Democrats, as well as from the Assembly.

The question of who is in the room, the governor’s office has seemed to suggest, is a diversion from the substantive policy work being carried out.

“If we want to talk about the importance of coming out with legislation that adequately addresses sexual harassment, whether or not someone is in a leaders’ meeting really distracts from the core principles that we’re trying to advance,” David said. He said the bill language had not been discussed in the leaders’ meetings.

Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, lashed out on Twitter on Tuesday at critics of the “four men in a room” model, saying that she was involved in policy discussions “helping to lead the charge.”

“It’s sad, though not surprising,” she wrote, that some people “only see a room full of men.”

And Candice Giove, a spokeswoman for Klein — whom progressive activists have accused of essentially stealing Stewart-Cousins’ seat — said Klein is “in lockstep” with Stewart-Cousins on sexual harassment reforms.

But for others, the politics are inextricable from the policy.

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, who has been a vocal critic of state sexual harassment policies, said the way that leaders arrive at the final decisions is just as important as the decisions themselves.

“I am confident that we as elected officials are really qualified to walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said when asked if the debate over Stewart-Cousins’ inclusion distracted from fiscal debates. “Discussing one is not making it impossible to discuss the other.”

Notably, the issue of sexual harassment is one of a few policy issues that lawmakers have indicated are still on the table in this year’s budget talks, with others — gun control, bail reform and protections for victims of childhood sexual abuse, for example — being punted to the normal legislative session.

Meanwhile, as the April 1 budget deadline approaches, with lawmakers rushing to conclude before Easter and Passover weekend, the usual miniature budgetary implosions and explosions have unfolded. Klein, leaving a leaders’ meeting on Tuesday evening, said they were nearing a “tentative deal.” Heastie, leaving just moments later, said there was no such deal. If history is any indication, the final budget agreement will arrive on lawmakers’ desks in the dead of night, or on a sleep-deprived morning.

For all the renewed attention to Stewart-Cousins’ exclusion from those meetings, she, too, said the negotiating process was unfolding as usual.

“If there was any indication that things would be different, it was raised by them,” she said of the governor’s office, which told The Wall Street Journal in February that Stewart-Cousins would “be included in negotiations on the sexual harassment bill.”

“Frankly, this year is like every other year,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

VIVIAN WANG © 2018 The New York Times