The New York City Council has pushed through a bill that would allow labor unions to greatly increase their donations to political candidates. The campaign finance bill gained wide support among council members at a time when unions and their lobbyists have increasingly become a force in city elections as well as in Council politics. The bill would allow different local chapters of the same union to be counted as distinct sources of contributions.
See "Council Bill Eases Restriction on Union Political Donations", Winnie Hu, The New York Times, November 16, 2005