Christine Quinn. (Photo: Getty)

Bronx City Councilman Fernando Cabrera was ready to defy established order.

He sensed that Speaker Christine Quinn was losing her grip on the legislative body.

"I'm scared," he told Politicker at the time. He kept the petitions he gathered at home--just to be safe.

Mr. Cabrera, a pastor, quietly went from colleague to colleague to rally support for two bills that the speaker had stalled, one that would let churches rent school property and another codifying a Tenants’ Bill of Rights. He said he gathered the dozen signatures necessary to give him the power to force a vote—a tactic, called a motion to discharge, that has not been deployed during Ms. Quinn’s tenure.

“I just walked up to them and said, ‘Listen, this is what I’m trying to do. Are you in?’” he later reflected. “Ninety-nine percent of them said yes.”

Mr. Cabrera’s school initiative will be among the first bills opposed by Ms. Quinn to come up for a vote in the Council. With Ms. Quinn’s leadership style coming under scrutiny by the press and political opponents as she campaigns for mayor, her famously tight control over the legislative body appears to be buckling.

Discussions with a wide range of council members, labor leaders and lobbyists—almost all of whom asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly—suggest a new sense of freedom in the Council, as well as the potential for chaos after the budget is passed in June.

According to Mr. Cabrera and others, council members have responded to Ms. Quinn’s lighter touch—whether real or perceived—by pushing their own proposals more aggressively, as well as by being bolder in their dissent.

Some challenges to Ms. Quinn’s rule are already visible. Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who is running for Queens borough president, recently gathered the media on the City Hall steps to demand that Ms. Quinn restore a scholarship named after his father, which he claims was cut after he publicly denounced her plan to rename the Queensboro Bridge. Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley has gone on national television to say that she believes Ms. Quinn slashed her budget three years ago as punishment for not giving the speaker enough credit in a press release.

Legislation mandating that most employers provide paid sick leave—which Ms. Quinn had bottled up for years—emerged for a vote so suddenly a few weeks ago that it was almost surreal. Like Mr. Cabrera, members had quietly threatened to force a vote using the motion to discharge.

And then, facing pressure from critics of stop and frisk, Ms. Quinn announced that she would allow a vote on a bill that would make it easier to sue the city’s police department for racial profiling—even though she warned the bill would create chaos for officers and compromise public safety. Never in her tenure has she allowed a vote on a bill she opposes.

Suddenly, some felt a new precedent had been set. If that bill was entitled to move forward, argued Mr. Vallone, why not everyone else’s? Since then, he has threatened to push three of his own stalled bills to the floor. One, which would create an animal abuse registry, will get a hearing next month.

While none of the Council insurgents have had to go so far as to use signatures to force a vote—thus far, they’ve merely threatened—the threats themselves suggest a new fearlessness among some members.

In the past, Ms. Quinn has silenced dissenters by defunding their district projects, known in the Council as member items. A much-cited front-page New York Times story on Ms. Quinn’s temper turned a spotlight on her use of the budget to maintain control by rewarding her allies with extra cash and doing the opposite to those who crossed her.

Although Ms. Quinn is currently the race’s front-runner, council members like Mr. Cabrera are making a calculation that her ability to push back is hampered by her mayoral ambitions. Her support could take a hit, for instance, if voters perceive her as willing to aggressively defund senior centers and other community programs.

“This year I imagine the speaker has to be very conscious that all eyes are on her,” he said. “If I do get punished, you guys are going to tell the story. And I’m going to hold a press conference.”

Ms. Quinn, who first won her Chelsea Council seat in 1999 and became speaker in 2006, has walked a fine line as she tries to manage the 51-member Council—a job that’s often likened to herding wild cats. While the tenure of her predecessor, Gifford Miller, was marked by constant squabbling with Mayor Bloomberg, Ms. Quinn, a former housing advocate, has chosen a different approach, working more closely with the mayor while keeping most of her members in line--thus far, at least. But that also puts her on precipitous footing as she seeks to balance business and labor and law-and-order types and police reform advocates, and other opposing groups as she tries to build a coalition for City Hall’s top job.

Although Ms. Quinn’s ability to wield the budget as a weapon is weakened by the media focus on her mayoral campaign, many sources predicted that greater unrest will unfold once the budget is finalized in June and the risk of funding cuts no longer weighs on lawmakers. “The budget is in a month and a half, then it’s open season,” one member mused.

Mr. Cabrera’s resolutions, relatively modest in their scope, aren’t likely to shake up the city. Neither will Councilman Oliver Koppell’s bill to require more handicap-accessible taxis, or Mr. Vallone’s proposed animal abuse registry.

But there is some concern among business leaders that their interests are no longer as protected as they have been in the last eight years of Quinn-Bloomberg collaboration.

Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the pro-business lobbying group Partnership for New York City, pointed to several pieces of legislation already winding their way through the Council, including one that would require projects that receive economic development money to complete community impact reports and another that bans employers from running credit checks on job applicants.

“We’re worried,” said Ms. Wylde about the potential push for additional business regulations. “That would be frightening to anyone that has concerns about thoughtful and responsible management of the city.”

In an interview, Ms. Quinn denied that the flurry of legislative activity indicated a fundamental shift.

“From my perspective, nothing has changed,” she told Politicker. “What’s happening now, at the end of the term, is exactly what I expected—that there would be a lot of interest from council members, especially those who might be term-limited out, in getting a lot of legislation passed,” she said, arguing that similar pushes were seen at the end of her predecessors’ terms.

“I hope and I have to believe that everyone who is running for office in this city will keep politics out of government,” she added. “We want to get as much good legislation passed into law as we possibly can.”

For their part, Quinn supporters pointed to media reports about slipping power at the end of past speakers’ terms, lapses that, they said, never actually emerged. A rebellious piece of legislation still needs to pass a chamber stocked with Quinn loyalists—the Council elected her speaker, after all, and she’s still the leading candidate for mayor. Furthermore, building support takes time. Advocates of paid sick leave worked for four years to get their vote, for example, holding countless press conferences, widening their coalition and running issue ads to build momentum.

Councilman Domenic Recchia, a close Quinn ally, argued that the legislative pushes were merely a “product of the calendar” as term-limited members try to cement their legacies, dismissing any threats as saber rattling. Councilman Mark Weprin generally agreed with Mr. Recchia’s take, as did Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the retail workers union, which has endorsed Ms. Quinn. Bronx Councilman Jimmy Vacca, who’s eyeing his own speakership bid, similarly said predictions of “chaos on the Council” were overblown, but said mayoral politics would undeniably play a role.

“To think that the Council will not be impacted by that political reality, I think, would be foolish,” he said. “Are we in a real political season, and is the politics going to be more profound going forward? Oh yeah.”

For council members as well as New York City’s government as a whole, the largest question in the days ahead could be the mayoral campaign, the outcome of which will have a significant impact on Ms. Quinn’s ability control the chamber. The September 10 Democratic primary looms large. A council member put Ms. Quinn’s situation bluntly: she’ll either be her party’s standard-bearer or a lame duck on her way out of office.

Either way, it’s going to get interesting.

“You know, there’s a fine line between mutiny and democracy,” Mr. Vallone said. “I think we’ll see a lot more of both.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Ms. Quinn first won her Council seat in 2001. It was in 1999.

(Art: Dale Stephanos)

“My phrasing may be too responsible, I don’t know.”

Bill Thompson, a candidate for mayor this year, was waxing philosophical last week about why his policy statements might not have the same pizazz as his competitors’ fiery pronouncements.

“If I had thrown an expletive in, maybe it would have gotten more attention. But then people would have to bleep it out,” he continued, sipping coffee. “Then it would be, ‘Bill Thompson, he doesn’t have the temperament to be the mayor of the City of New York!’”

It would not be long before Mr. Thompson’s spokesman, Ibrahim Khan, offered some less-than-serious assistance from across the table.

“We can get him to drop some F-bombs if you want,” he said. “If that’s going to make your story better, he can go on a tirade you haven’t seen! He’ll throw his coffee back. You know he’s just taking it easy right now.”

No tirade, no F-bombs. But Mr. Thompson was animated throughout a lengthy discussion. Lightly banging his fists on the table to punctuate his more expressive thoughts and even cracking a joke or two, Mr. Thompson, a former two-term comptroller, strongly pushed back against those who would depict him as boring and unenergetic.

“No one said I wasn’t working hard enough or didn’t have fire in my belly when I was comptroller,” he argued, pointing out that his main Democratic rivals—Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and current Comptroller John Liu—all hold the bully pulpit that comes with elected office. “Others are trying to paint a perception.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Thompson—59, bespectacled and with a tendency to speak methodically—doesn’t immediately crush the stereotype in his speeches and addresses. And, even though his father, William Thompson Sr., was a city councilman, a state senator and a judge at various points in his career, the younger Mr. Thompson said his upbringing was a lesson in public service rather than training in the hard-nosed nature of campaign politics.

“It was less about a political background than it was public service. My mother was a public school teacher,” he said of a youth spent in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1950s and ’60s. “It wasn’t necessarily force-fed; it was a little bit of osmosis. I remember my father’s Democratic club, their dinner dances. I don’t remember so much going, but my parents leaving to go. The Democratic club was around the corner from our house. I remember the people who used to be involved in community issues there.”

Mr. Thompson, now a Harlem resident and a municipal finance professional, would go on to serve in the offices of various government officials, as wells as stints as Brooklyn’s deputy borough president and as president of the now-defunct New York City Board of Education. He didn’t hit the campaign trail himself, however, until 2001, when he successfully ran citywide for comptroller.

But his main claim to fame isn’t his work as comptroller or on other levels of government. Mr. Thompson is most renowned for the mere 4.6 percent of the vote that prevented him from stopping Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s third term in 2009. Mr. Thompson was running against the headwinds of a billionaire mayor’s bottomless campaign war chest, and few gave him a chance until after the votes were tallied, making the closeness of the race all the more notable. He described how a false narrative ultimately contributed to his narrow defeat.

“It was hard to convince people, and it was hard to convince members of the media, that he could be beat,” Mr. Thompson recalled. “It was hard to convince people at times what they saw in front of them. You’d have a crowd of people going, ‘Yeah!’ And you’d go, ‘Guys, I’m telling you, there’s something going on here.’ And no one would write it.”

Mayor Bloomberg ultimately spent an eye-popping $102 million on his race, virtually all of it from his own pocket. With Mr. Thompson spending a total of about $8.3 million, the math is pretty compelling. Mr. Thompson spent less than $16 per vote, compared with Mayor Bloomberg’s stunning $175. And with the mayor’s lead nearly evaporating as Election Day approached, it’s not hard to see how just a bit more fuel in Mr. Thompson’s tank could have propelled the soft-spoken comptroller into Gracie Mansion.

Yet at some points in the race, Mr. Thompson didn’t do a lot to counter the perception that Mayor Bloomberg couldn’t be beaten. From demoralized campaign aides openly dismissing his chances to typos in press releases (most painfully, one that labeled the candidate “Thomson”), sources close to the electoral effort described an operation that didn't really come together until the final stretch to Election Day.

“I think Billy is personable. I think that he has the ability to connect with people. I think that he actually has a decent policy-wonk side that doesn’t always come out, or doesn’t come out in the right ways,” one Democrat explained. “I think the standard knocks on Billy are also mostly true. He often does lack the passion to articulate the vision that the people will be excited about.”

Mr. Thompson’s supporters vehemently disagreed with the negative elements of this characterization. In interviews late last week, Elsie McCabe Thompson called her husband “relentless,” while former Governor Eliot Spitzer, a longtime friend of Mr. Thompson’s, said the occasional faux pas “weren’t demonstrative of the overall campaign.”

“I appreciate what he does, his style. The issues that have sort of percolated out there: is there fire in the belly? People manifest desire in different ways,” Mr. Spitzer mused about Mr. Thompson’s character, noting that he has yet to endorse a mayoral candidate this year. “Not everybody is pounding the table. Not everyone is breathing fire. Billy has a sort of more deliberate, even-tempered, even-handed approach to things. Which should not be mistaken for a lack of passion or a lack of desire.”

Regardless, as rival political operatives are quick to point out, Mr. Thompson didn’t leave a large footprint, despite coming so close to toppling Mr. Bloomberg and spending a few million dollars in voter outreach in the process. In this race, a Jan. 16 Quinnipiac University poll had just 31 percent of the city’s voters expressing a favorable opinion of Mr. Thompson and 10 percent unfavorable. The other leading Democrats in the race have significantly higher recognition, especially Ms. Quinn, leading the pack with 64 percent approval. Even Mr. Liu, whose brand suffered a barrage of bad headlines when multiple criminal indictments were leveled at his fund-raising operation, posted a respectable 46 percent.

For her part, Ms. Thompson said her husband’s fan base is much deeper than the public polling suggests, and she expressed frustration with the stereotype of him as unenthused and inactive.

“Friends of mine, a year ago would ask me—you know, Manhattanites—‘I don’t see Bill! Is he really campaigning?’” she said. “Absolutely. You don’t see him because he’s not where you’d expect him. He’s not in the Central Business District half of the time. He’s out in streets, he’s at churches, synagogues and community centers ... He’s talking to people. Not just the folks that Quinnipiac may poll; he talks to people who vote.”

Despite his second-tier poll position, and even though he trails in fund-raising, politicos almost universally acknowledge Mr. Thompson as having a genuine shot at Gracie Mansion. Indeed, as the sole African-American contender on his party’s side of the aisle, Mr. Thompson would seem to have a natural advantage in a Democratic primary electorate that boasts an even higher proportion of black and Latino voters than the city as a whole.

“I just think that there are common messages that unite communities and [they] express concerns in those areas. That’s what I talk about. Am I black?” Mr. Thompson said, pausing to examine his own hand to stress the obviousness of his point. “Yeah! But at the same point, that’s not why black and Latino communities have been supportive.”

Additionally, Mr. Thompson emphasized the differences between 2013 and his last campaign, notably the lack of an extremely wealthy, free-spending incumbent and, as he kept pointing out, media coverage that actually acknowledges his candidacy as legitimate.

“Look, I think I’m a better candidate today than I was in ’09,” he said. “I think every experience is a learning opportunity. I think there were things I learned ... The perception was that Bloomberg couldn’t be beat. No matter what you did, no matter what the public [thought], no matter how strong the crowds and the response and—there were people you couldn’t convince.”

While acknowledging that there’s still a long time before the summer, when voters cast ballots in his primary, Mr. Thompson also claimed that his campaign had “turned the corner in a lot of ways” in recent days. His latest campaign finance filing showed more than $1 million raised in the last six months, and he gave a policy address in front of the pro-business Association for a Better New York in which he unveiled some proposals, including increasing the size of the city’s Police Department.

But there is still that dogging image of him not being hungry for the job. Right on point, after the ABNY address, the very first questioner in the audience—who was sympathetic to Mr. Thompson’s candidacy—brought it up clearly, describing it as an asset.

“The major criticism of you has not been your intelligence or indeed your record, but rather your temperament,” she began. “I actually think, witnessing you over the years, that your calm temperament that some people perceive as a lack of energy, has, in fact, been a plus in resolving some very tough issues.”

On stage at a Hilton Hotel ballroom, Mr. Thompson countered by claiming he only seems mild-mannered compared with the rest of the Big Apple’s political scene.

“People, at times, think if you don’t scream and holler, if you don’t attack people in New York City, you’re ‘calm and mild-mannered,’” he replied, pausing before reiterating and embellishing the point. “It’s New York City, if you don’t scream and if you don’t holler, you’re ‘mild-mannered.’ If you don’t try and throw someone down the stairs, you ‘lack fire in the belly.’ This is New York City, it’s what we’re used to.”

I asked Mr. Thompson if he was frustrated by all of the talk about temperament. The calm, collected former comptroller is who he is—he rhetorically shrugged his shoulders and said it has been diminishing “bit by bit.” He even predicted it’d eventually go away completely—on Election Day, if need be.

“You get used to it,” said the man who might just quietly walk over the finish line first. “Over a period of time, people will stand up and say, ‘Wow, I’ve run into him five times this week, yet he is working hard,’ I guess some of it also is when the votes get counted, and people go, ‘Damn. He won?’”

ccampbell@observer.com

(Photo: Getty)

On Piers Morgan Tonight last night, actor Alec Baldwin stated flatly he would not run for Mayor of New York City, a possibility he had flirted with for some time. But that doesn't mean he's going to stay out of the race.

"Although it was something I would have loved to have done, truly," the 30 Rock star explained. "I didn't have time because I'm doing the TV show now and I have other commitments. But I'm very interested in what the post-Bloomberg New York will look now, that's for sure."

As to who he would back now that he's taken himself out of contention, Mr. Baldwin joined his acting colleague Steve Buscemi in indicating his support for the city's public advocate. “Probably Bill de Blasio," he said. "Right now, I'd have to say Bill de Blasio."

Mr. Baldwin, who has criticized Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the past, saved most of his passion to rail again against her prospective candidacy, however. At one point, he even went so as to say she has "blood on her hands" over the term-limits extensions extension that gave Mayor Michael Bloomberg another four years in office.

"She was the one that single-handedly killed the voter referendum at Bloomberg's behest and gave him the third term," Mr. Baldwin argued. "I was very, very upset about that. I just don't think that Quinn is trustworthy. She's a very, very nice person, I've met her. In terms of her political aspirations, she's a very untrustworthy person; she's very, very self-seeking."

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(Photo: Getty)

Late last night, The New York Times broke the news that M.T.A. Chairman Joe Lhota is considering entering next year's mayoral race as a Republican, and is being strongly urged by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to do so. Since Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, is Mr. Lhota's boss and the chairman was beside him at a press conference this afternoon, a reporter asked the governor about this possibility. Needless to say, Mr. Cuomo does not sound not interested in adding to his current political complications he's already dealing with in Albany.

"I'm going to try to stay out of the politics of New York City if I can avoid it," Mr. Cuomo replied. Pressed on whether he will make any endorsement whatsoever, he succinctly added, "I'm not expecting to, no."

Of course, Mr. Cuomo's statement allows plenty of wiggle room down the road, especially, one would imagine, if Democratic prospects end up worse than they appear and his party needs a boost from the popular governor.

Besides indicating his intention to avoid touching the mayor's race with a ten-foot pole, Mr. Cuomo did manage to heap praise on Mr. Lhota's service in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, along with a word of warning for any aspiring elected official.

"I would like to see Mr. Lhota do what Mr. Lhota wants to do," he said. "He has done an extraordinary job as head of the M.T.A, the entire region got to see that during the storm at Sandy. I knew how well he was performing but they actually saw his performance, so whatever he would like to do, I think he should do. I admire that he enjoys public service. I would caution him on elected office, however, because it is a nasty process to go through."

(Photo: Getty)

Veteran New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams has written quite a bit on New York City politics over the years, and last night, NY1's Inside City Hall invited her on to share her thoughts on next year's mayoral race, which she did in her own inimitable way.

Ms. Adams was particularly displeased with Comptroller John Liu's prospective candidacy. Mr. Liu, who majored in Mathematical Physics and went on to work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, is usually criticized for the fundraising scandal surrounding his campaign, but Ms. Adams chose to insult his intelligence.

"He's an imbiot (sic). Imbecile. He's an idiot. So we have to forget him because even he forgets him," she explained.

Ms. Adams next moved on to Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the frontrunner to replace term-limited Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  The columnist was entirely focused on Ms. Quinn's sexuality and wedding this year to another woman, Kim Catullo.

"But I went to Christine Quinn's wedding and I was standing there with Mayor Bloomberg, by the way, and we were trying to figure out what do you call Christine's husband or wife, if she were to becomes mayor? Is this the First Person? The First Whatever? What do you call her?...You can't call her the First Lady, I don't know, it doesn't seem right."

Asked to elaborate further on the mayoral field, Ms. Adams addressed two non-candidates, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Mr. Stringer dropped out of the race to run for Mr. Liu's comptroller position instead and Mr. Giuliani's spokesperson shot down a rumor that he was interested in a comeback campaign, an idea first raised by one of Ms. Adams' columns.

"The charter allows him to do it. He's not going to do it. He's not going to do it," Ms. Adams said of the former mayor. "Everybody else is running; everybody but my housekeeper is running. They've all been to my house. The only one I feel really badly about is Scott Stringer, because he came over for tea to my house. We gave him everything and the best cookies that I had, I gave him. Now he's not running and I've wasted the best cookies. What a total waste and he's not even running! I wouldn't give cookies to a comptroller!"

(Photo: Getty)

"Okay, the race for the White House is over and it's time to look at the New York City mayoral race, where the possibly decisive Democratic primary could be as early as June. The morning line? City Council Speaker Christine Quinn leaves the other Democratic contenders in the dust," Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement with his latest survey.

The numbers indeed show Ms. Quinn far ahead, with 32% support among registered Democrats, even as she faces off against two citywide elected officials, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, and 2009's nominee, Bill Thompson. Mr. Thompson barely edged out Mr. de Blasio for the silver medal, 10 to 9 percent, with Mr. Liu standing at 5 percent.

(The survey was conducted before Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer dropped out of the race, but he took only 4 percent).

It's not exactly surprising that Ms. Quinn is ahead; she's led all recent polling, including last month's NY1/Marist survey.

However, it's important to keep in mind that multi-candidate primary races are incredibly fluid, as voters are far more likely to change their mind in a primary than the typical Republican vs. Democrat affair. Also, as the poll included all registered Democrats, it undoubtedly captured a wider audience than the more motivated electorate that will actually turn out come Election Day. Nevertheless, it's much better to be ahead than behind, and Ms. Quinn's rivals have a lot of work to do.

Two potential Republican candidates were also tested, M.T.A. Chairman Joe Lhota and former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, and they distantly trailed in a question pitting them against a generic Democrat.

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