De Blasio against campaign donation hikes — unless they benefit him

He's for limiting campaign donations — unless they're for him.

After a Republican group filed a lawsuit last month seeking to nix the state's limit on independent expenditures from individuals, Bill de Blasio came out strongly in favor of maintaining the limits.

But when his allies in labor were threatened with strict donation ceilings back in 2005, de Blasio staged a fierce and successful fight to keep the cash flowing, records show.

And now the mayoral front-runner's campaign is benefiting financially from that victory.

In February 2005, the Campaign Finance Board attempted to limit the influence of unions by clarifying that affiliated chapters — along with state, national and international umbrellas — would be considered a "single source" of donations. This would have limited contributions from unions to the same $4,950 cap that governs individuals and corporations.

But de Blasio — then a labor-friendly City Council member who needed union support for a pending battle to become speaker — led the charge to draft legislation that would keep union cash flowing — and that victory has allowed groups like Unite Here to skirt the $4,950 donation limit in the current mayoral campaign.

While de Blasio and his staff argued outwardly about the public benefits and fairness of a carve-out for unions with diverse memberships, e-mails in his council archives reviewed by The Post show a much clearer endgame.

"Its effect will be that . . . few if any unions will be treated as affiliated," a labor lawyer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees wrote after reviewing the proposed bill's draft language in March 2005. "So, in that sense, it will achieve our goals."

It's not clear whether de Blasio received that e-mail because some recipient names have since been redacted.

Even after the Campaign Finance Board agreed to table its rule changes until after the 2005 election, de Blasio and the City Council pressed ahead with their bill.

Just weeks before the council approved the union-friendly measure, then-CFB chairman Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. ripped it as a "poorly conceived effort" and "retrogressive."

Unite Here — which represents hospitality workers in New York and elsewhere — has given de Blasio nearly $26,000 by having its affiliates in Chicago, Boston, Atlantic City and Los Angeles pitch in with maximum donations.

The union's San Diego chapter kicked in an additional $1,000.

Similarly, the International Union of Operating Engineers had three of its local chapters chip in to donate $10,400 toward de Blasio's campaign.

A campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

"The general principal we think is that if you completely control a subsidiary — whether it's a corporate affiliate or a union — we think that should be counted as a single contribution," said Gene Russianoff, senior counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group. "The whole goal of the Campaign Finance Board is to limit the role that contributions play in elections, and we're losing some of that in this election cycle."

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