HARRISBURG (TNS) — The first preview of an incendiary political sideshow tied to ongoing state budget negotiations — one so charged that an accusation of intimidation has been hurled at Senate leaders — may have occurred on May 29 when a Republican senator met a woman from Texas in his Bucks County district.

The senator, Frank Farry, had been a volunteer firefighter and fire chief long before he was a lawmaker. So he was shocked to learn the woman was informing constituents Mr. Farry wanted to close fire companies.

Equally bizarre, Mr. Farry said, was that she carried a flyer with Mr. Farry’s picture on it, but she did not recognize him.

That encounter, Mr. Farry said, is part of “an intended pattern of intimidation” delivered via a campaign of misinformation in Republican Senate districts. He said it involves money, people from Texas, and a desire to tamp down lawmakers’ efforts to tax and regulate so-called “skill games.”

But a spokesperson for a dominant skills game company said it is Senate Republican leadership who have done the intimidating, by pressuring lobbying firms to stop representing the company.

The nasty political fray around skill games — a key state budget issue — has escalated into dueling charges of pressure campaigns that have pitted some of the most powerful lawmakers in Pennsylvania against a wealthy industry in a battle during negotiations for a state budget that is already 15 days late.

Republican legislators say the industry has mounted a coordinated effort to intimidate their members into voting for favorable tax rates for the companies, angering the lawmakers who have been targeted by the door-knocking campaign that’s being carried out by canvassers shipped in from out of state.

At the same time, one of the largest skill games companies in the country, Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, is accusing Senate GOP leaders of twisting the arms of some of the most powerful lobbying firms in Harrisburg to get them to cut ties with the corporation in mid-June, just as budget negotiations were entering a critical phase.

On Monday, the House passed a General Fund appropriations bill. But it was opposed by nearly all Republicans and came without accompanying explanations of exactly how some of the appropriations would be spent. The Republican-run Senate is scheduled to return to Harrisburg on Wednesday for its first voting session since June 30.

Devoid of regulation, skill games — electronic video games that look a bit like slot machines but have been judged to involve a component of skill — have appeared across the state in fire halls, convenience stores, clubs and many other small venues. Gov. Josh Shapiro has said there are 70,000 of them in Pennsylvania.

What happens with them is crucial because the state is spending billions of dollars more than it is collecting. A new skill games tax could produce hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue.

Interested factions include small businesses that have become dependent on revenue generated by the games. The state lottery — whose proceeds help seniors — says skill games are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from its market. And many complaints about crime have been tied to the games.

In recent months, flyer-wielding strangers who seemed to have little knowledge of what they were distributing began to show up in districts of Republican senators, including Mr. Farry’s.

Sen. Rosemary Brown, R-Monroe, found a flyer with her picture on it in the door of her home, according to Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington. Attempts to obtain an interview with Ms. Brown were not successful.

Ms. Bartolotta herself captured on video a man who came to her door with a flyer bearing her picture, in what she termed a “strong-arm kind of tactic” related to skill games lawmaking. Mr. Farry said some of the flyer distributors in his district were from Texas and claimed to be volunteer firefighters.

Both senators said the effort was being backed by Defeating Communism, a political action committee.

On a form filed last week with the Federal Election Commission, Defeating Communism PAC of Dublin, Ohio, showed receipts of more than $443,000 in the first six months of the year, nearly all of it from Citizens Alliance Political Action Committee of Dublin, Ohio. It had disbursements of more than $332,000, nearly of it going to a pair of Texas-based LLCs for what was described as a “state level door knocking program.”

Attempts to contact the treasurer of the Defeating Communism PAC were not immediately successful.

Mike Barley, a spokesperson for Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, the dominant manufacturer of skill games, said the company is not affiliated or involved with the Defeating Communism PAC. Mr. Barley, chief public affairs officer for the company, was with a major lobbying firm in Harrisburg for 10 years until mid-June, and he accused top senators of poisoning Pace-O-Matic’s environment in the Capitol.

“The only ‘strong-arm’ tactics that took place were when the state Senate leadership intimidated three lobbying firms to resign from representing us, or they would face punishment,” Mr. Barley said. “Astonishingly, a point they refuse to deny.”

A spokesperson for Senate Republicans, Kate Flessner, said any organization’s decision to use a lobbying firm is a private business matter between the two parties.

“We continue to affirm that respectful dialogue, and compromises are key tenets of meaningful policy and legislative changes, and that bullying and deflection do not produce results,” Ms. Flessner said.

Not everyone in the Senate Republican caucus condemns the flyer-spreading.

Sen. Jarrett Coleman of Lehigh County, who previously criticized the notion of putting taxes on the games, said he has heard about the flyer distributing and seen the flyer with Sen. Rosemary Brown’s picture on it. None of it, he said, appeared to be intimidation.

“No matter how critical mailers or flyers may be of public officials, it is all part of free speech and a cornerstone of what our country was built on,” Mr. Coleman said.

Mr. Coleman is among 33 state lawmakers who have signed a pledge of lawmaking principles for Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania. Mr. Coleman said he is not associated with the Ohio-listed Citizens Alliance group, nor is he involved in the flyer campaign.

Political tactics aside, the vast differences in the competing financial proposals are daunting.

Mr. Shapiro has sought a tax of 52% on the games, the same level already paid on slot machines and video game terminals. One Republican-backed bill in the Senate contains a tax level of 35%.

Mr. Barley, the Pace-O-Matic spokesperson, said a level of 16% is most appropriate because that is rate paid by casinos for table games. He said skill games are more comparable to table games than they are to slot machines.

Both Mr. Farry and Ms. Bartolotta said Pace-O-Matic has repeatedly avoided taking part in detailed negotiations to reach a compromise. Mr. Barley disputed that, saying the company has been “consistent and forthright” with lawmakers and that the record shows the company has been talking to Senate leaders “for years.”