The City Council is expected to pass legislation today that will allow the city’s powerful labor unions to donate more money to candidates running for public office.

The bill has pitted the council against the Campaign Finance Board and has created a rift between two bodies that generally agree.

“The council wants to pre-empt the Campaign Finance Board’s control by passing legislation to ensure that local unions of the same parent are allowed to make contributions,” the executive director of Citizens Union, an advocacy group, Dick Dadey, said.

The dispute flared up in February while many candidates were feverishly trying to raise money for their elections. In response to confusion about what they could accept, the board tried to clarify its “single source” rule.

In June, the CFB shelved a vote on implementing its “clarified” rule. Now, about a week after Election Day, the campaign finance dispute is back in the spotlight. Under current law, a single source is allowed to contribute a maximum of $2,750 to council candidates and $4,950 to candidates running for mayor or another citywide office.

The CFB said affiliates of the same entity must be counted as a single entity when it comes to donation limits unless they can prove they are separate. Thus, Local 1999, the health care workers union, and 32BJ, the building workers union, count as a single entity because they fall under the umbrella of the Service Employees International Union.

Council members and labor leaders backing the measure under consideration today said local affiliates often are independent and should be viewed as separate donors, providing that they meet certain criteria. The bill sets out four criteria they must meet to be considered separate.

Yesterday, the executive director of the board, Nicole Gordon, told The New York Sun there was an “expectation” that no action would be taken until after the board conducted its mandated post-election review. Supporters of the measure said, however, that action is needed immediately because the board is now enforcing the rule and questioning legitimate donations from the election cycle that just ended.

They cite Council Member Annabel Palma, a former staffer of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199. Ms. Palma is charged with accepting excessive campaign contributions from affiliate unions, among other alleged violations. She is challenging the charges in court.

The president of the New York Center Labor Council, Brian McLaughlin, plans to testify before the council today that the rule “completely undermines democracy and free speech by denying a voice to working men and women.”

His prepared testimony says: “Anyone who understands the labor movement knows well that local unions have their own constitutions, bylaws, executive boards, bank accounts, and most importantly, their own voice.”

Some have questioned the timing of the council’s action. The senior attorney of the New York Public Interest Research Group, Gene Russianoff, who supports the CFB, said the bill was “caught up in the speaker’s race.”

The two main sponsors of the measure – council members Bill de Blasio and Leroy Comrie, who are known to have strong ties to labor – are running to replace the current speaker of the body, Gifford Miller, who is being termed out of office. As speaker, it is Mr. Miller who sets the agenda on which legislation is considered.

Mr. Russianoff said that if a local chapter is truly separate from its parent entity, it should be allowed to give to candidates. He added, however: “We’d be hypocrites if we said that corporations controlled, let’s say, by Donald Trump can only give one single contribution, but union locals” can give more.

Mr. Dadey said the council legislation does not go far enough, but that if the regulations were more stringent, the affiliates should be allowed to give. He also said the council’s timing was inappropriate.

A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Jordan Barowitz, said the bill would be vetoed. “The Mayor has always opposed the City Council’s attempts to pass self-serving legislation which undermines the campaign finance system,” he said via e-mail. “These decisions should be made by the Campaign Finance Board, not the City Council.”

The council is expected to have the votes to override a veto.