A veritable bevy of labor unions hosted a breakfast fund-raiser this morning to benefit Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her likely 2009 mayoral bid. I'm told both UFT President Randi Weingarten and PBA President Pat Lynch put in personal appearances, while representatives from the other unions listed on the invite were present. The event comes just three days before the July 11 cut-off for accepting checks in this fund-raising period (July 15 is the reporting deadline) and also (per The Times this morning ) as would-be '09 candidates for a variety of different offices are rushing to cram in those last extra dollars in hopes of demonstrating an early show of financial strength, which could potentially winnow the field in their respective races. Quinn, who has weathered a bumpy couple of months due to the Council slush fund scandal that derailed her attention from 2009, has apparently refocused her fund-raising efforts now that things have settled down a bit (although they are far from over). The speaker's long-standing ties to organized labor provide an added benefit in the contribution department, since the pay-to-play campaign finance reform law she shepherded through the Council doesn't apply to unions. The perceived creation of different "classes" of donors led to a legal challenge to the law , which is still working its way through the courts. Quinn also just presided over a tense city budget agreement with the Bloomberg a ...
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A veritable bevy of labor unions hosted a breakfast fund-raiser this morning to benefit Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her likely 2009 mayoral bid. I'm told both UFT President Randi Weingarten and PBA President Pat Lynch put in personal appearances, while representatives from the other unions listed on the invite were present. The event comes just three days before the July 11 cut-off for accepting checks in this fund-raising period (July 15 is the reporting deadline) and also (per The Times this morning ) as would-be '09 candidates for a variety of different offices are rushing to cram in those last extra dollars in hopes of demonstrating an early show of financial strength, which could potentially winnow the field in their respective races. Quinn, who has weathered a bumpy couple of months due to the Council slush fund scandal that derailed her attention from 2009, has apparently refocused her fund-raising efforts now that things have settled down a bit (although they are far from over). The speaker's long-standing ties to organized labor provide an added benefit in the contribution department, since the pay-to-play campaign finance reform law she shepherded through the Council doesn't apply to unions. The perceived creation of different "classes" of donors led to a legal challenge to the law , which is still working its way through the courts. Quinn also just presided over a tense city budget agreement with the Bloomberg a ...