A City Council member and former staffer for the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, Annabel Palma, has brought a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city’s campaign finance laws.

A New York Supreme Court Justice, Paul Feinman, issued a temporary restraining order against the Campaign Finance Board on October 20. Ms. Palma’s lawyer, Jerry Goldfeder, is due to appear before the court again on Wednesday.

The Campaign Finance Board had been investigating union participation in Ms. Palma’s 2003 campaign. Should the board find against her, the penalties could exceed $100,000.

Two issues are at stake. First, the board alleges that, because the unions coordinated with Ms. Palma’s campaign in its independent efforts to get her elected, the union expenditures are subject to contribution limits, which it exceeded. Second, the board charges that the contributions Ms. Palma accepted from unions affiliated with 1199, New York’s health care workers union, also exceed the limit, because they count as contributions from a single source.

The board caps contributions to New York City Council races at $2,750. Affiliates of the service employees union gave a total of $23,000 to Ms. Palma’s campaign.

Each of these rules “is unconstitutionally vague, and, as such, infringes upon plaintiffs’ rights of speech and association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” says an order to show cause that Ms. Palma’s attorney, Mr. Goldfeder, issued in conjunction with the lawsuit.

A spokeswoman for the Campaign Finance Board, Andrea Lynn, said the restraining order “prevented the Board from following its normal administrative procedures, which are applied to all candidates.”

“We are well within our rights to communicate with our staffers involved in political campaigns. That’s routinely what we do when we participate in electoral politics. It makes no difference whether or not the candidate is a member of the union,” the executive vice-president of 1199, Jennifer Cunningham, said. “When we endorse someone, we tell our members to vote for them and participate in the political process.”

Another council member, Bill de Blasio, has introduced a bill that would clarify and relax the single source rule. If passed before the board decides Ms. Palma’s case, the law might prevent the board from fining Palma for violations of that rule.

Ms. Palma said that because her 2003 campaign committee is already in debt, should she have to pay the proposed fines, “It would come out of my personal pocket. … I would be paying back the CFB for 10 years.”

The case was reported last week at the New York Observer’s Politicker Web log.