Why doesn’t Mike Mulgrew just buy a blackjack and be done with it?
That’s what City Council Speaker Christine Quinn must be wondering this week — after the United Federation of Teachers boss publicly ordered her to fire her political consultant.
“If I’m Chris, I’d be asking myself: Maybe I don’t want to be working with these people,” said Mulgrew, referring to her consulting firm, SKDKnickerbocker.
Translation: Nice campaign you got there, Quinn. Be a pity if something happened to it.
What’s he got against SKD?
As The Post reported last week, it’s representing a new group, StudentsFirst NY, that backs Mayor Bloomberg’s school reforms — like expanding charter schools and making it easier to fire bad teachers.
Reforms, that is, that the union despises.
Mulgrew is furious that StudentsFirst “is working with the mayor to control something that he should have no business controlling.”
Right. Doesn’t Bloomberg know that Mulgrew controls the schools?
So the UFT boss issued Quinn an ultimatum: Lose SKD — or lose union support.
Thuggish? Of course.
But irrational? Not at all.
After all, Quinn and her council colleagues have long been slavish shills for unions — especially when it comes to expanding their political power.
On Thursday, The Post reported how she and another mayoral wannabe, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, got the Campaign Finance Board to carve out a special break for unions regarding campaign-disclosure rules. Under the rules, for instance, unions won’t have to disclose what they spend on fliers handed out by members to promote candidates, as some groups do.
That’ll let labor back someone who’ll do its bidding without spilling to the public how much it’s really spending on the candidate’s behalf. Sweet.
In return, it can expect lots of, uh . . . cooperation, once the candidate has won.
But it’s not like unions need yet another political edge. Already they enjoy numerous loopholes written just for them by bought-and-paid-for council members:
* Unions can donate to political campaigns directly — unlike businesses. (Federal law offers no such carve-out for labor.)
* They can skirt campaign-contribution limits that everyone else must observe by creating locals that are considered separate entities and can donate independently.
* They’re exempt from “pay-to-play” laws that impose lower gift limits on firms and groups with business before the city.
Yet even all that’s not enough for Mulgrew.
Now he’s dictating campaign consultants.
Now Quinn must decide if she’ll obey his order and fire SKD — or risk UFT support.
“Chris welcomes all voices to the debate on education, from the teachers union to StudentsFirst,” one of her aides said.
Fine. But watch what she does.
Her decision will be telling, indeed.