Mayor Backs Quinn Amid Slush Fallout

Mayor Bloomberg is defending Speaker Christine Quinn's record amid fallout over the City Council's slush fund scandal, saying she has "unfairly been beaten up a little bit in the press."

Mr. Bloomberg's remarks came as he addressed a seminar on ethics held by the city's Conflicts of Interest Board at New York Law School. He praised Ms. Quinn for "adding teeth" to laws restricting lobbyist activity and for making government transparency a priority.

"We should give her the due for taking us in the right direction," he said yesterday. "I think she has proved the naysayers wrong that said you can't do anything about this pay to play issue."

Ms. Quinn, a likely candidate for mayor in 2009, has come under scrutiny since it was disclosed last month that the council had for years parked funding in fake charities before later doling the money out for use by council members. The scandal has drawn attention to a variety of practices surrounding the use of discretionary funding to bankroll lawmakers' projects, some of which — such as some council members allocating money to nonprofits run by relatives — have raised questions regarding potential conflicts of interest.

Mr. Bloomberg recently disclosed that he, too, controls discretionary funds that he assigns to city lawmakers.

After discussing Ms. Quinn, Mr. Bloomberg said business leaders interested in government service were being unfairly burdened with small potential conflicts of interest and that some rules should be eased to allow them to participate more.

"We have to find that right balance between conflicts that are real and conflicts that are very remote," Mr. Bloomberg said.