Christine Quinn is under attack, and from a side she may not have been expecting.

A new attack ad slamming Quinn as “always on the wrong side” apparently comes from “a coalition of left-leaning labor unions and Democratic activists who say they are not backing anyone in particular” according to the New York Times.

However, Quinn’s campaign spokesman, Mike Morey, reportedly accused opponent Bill de Blasio of being behind the ad, pointing to de Blasio’s “strong connections” to the groups backing it.

“If Bill de Blasio is the progressive he claims to me, then he should oppose this effort to undermine the most progressive campaign finance system in the country,” Morey said.

De Blasio spokesman Dan Levitan reported denied knowledge of the spot prior to being questioned by a reporter late Sunday, and replied, “Nothing undermined our democratic system more than when Speaker Quinn overturned term limits and let Mayor Bloomberg spend $100 million buying four more years.”

The organizers behind the ad have reportedly pledged more than $1 million to the campaign against Quinn and are spending $250,000 for the television ad. Another commercial is on track for this week, as well as mailers and radio ads.

Quinn declined to place blame on a specific opponent, but told Capital New York, “We have no place for this type of indecent expenditure in New York City’s campaign system.”

New York City elections have a 6-to-1 funds matching system: each donor-dollar up to $175 is matched with $6 in public funds for a maximum of $1,050 in public funds per contributor.

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A representative at the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes disputed claims that the DA is going to be involved in a reality television show on CBS in the coming months.

“The CBS people don’t call it that and we don’t call it that,” said Jerry Schmetterer, the DA’s Director of Public Information. “I don’t believe it’s accurate to call it a reality show in the genre that we’re used to seeing reality shows.”

Schmetterer instead described the television appearance as a six-episode documentary. The first episode will air on May 21st, he said.

Schmetterer also emphasized that the show is not specifically about Hynes.

“It’s focusing on the 1,200 people who work here in the DA’s office, which is the largest office in the country,” Schmetterer explained. “It’s really taking a look at the important and difficult work that they do.”

“The DA is a part of it, but he’s just one part,” Schmetterer added.

According to Schmetterer, the show will look at the inner workings of the office, as well as “re-create” some of the most famous cases the office has prosecuted.

Some people are skeptical, however, including one of Hynes’ competitors in this year’s election, Ken Thompson.

Thompson seized upon a line in the Daily News report that broke the news of Hynes’ television appearance.

“The network was also given access to two sensitive sting operations that prosecutors have been working on for months, and that they’re hoping to make arrests on before the show airs,” the Daily News wrote.

Thompson slammed Hynes over this allegation, saying, “It is simply reckless for District Attorney Hynes to share sensitive information about ongoing cases and investigations with a film crew for self-promotion—information that leaked before the show even aired and could easily lead to more failed prosecutions and overturned cases.”

Schmetterer dismissed these accusations, saying that when the show airs, “there’ll be no confidential information revealed.”

“There’ll be no open cases involved in the documentary,” he said. “They haven’t been given access to anything that other reporters couldn’t get access to.”

But in regard to “that information about two cases,” Schmetterer mentioned that, at the request of the DA’s office, “the Daily News agreed not to run… information [in the internal CBS document] that would endanger these cases and maybe lives.”

Still, he insisted, “no case is being compromised.”

He emphasized that the document the Daily News obtained was an internal document from one CBS employee to another, and “there’s a lot in that document that isn’t happening.”

“What the Daily News was working off of was nothing that was official and nothing that was vetted for accuracy,” Schmetterer concluded.

In 2011, prosecutors in the Manhattan DA’s office who were responsible for litigating sex crime cases were the focus of an HBO documentary, prompting criticism from former prosecutors. Defense attorneys for two NYPD cops acquitted of rape but convicted of official misconduct used the opportunity to review the footage in the hope that they could move for a mistrial. However, the cops were ultimately sentenced and did not win their appeal.

Susan Zilinsky, reportedly a producer on the show, did not respond to a request for comment.

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Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota has been racking up support from GOP lawmakers throughout the boroughs, just days after former Gov. George Pataki endorsed rival candidate and supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis.

The GOP delegation of the City Council came out for Lhota on Tuesday.

Councilman Dan Halloran said, “No incoming mayor will have had as much experience upon entering office as Joe Lhota does right now,” and Councilman Eric Ulrich based his endorsement on the belief that Lhota’s “hands-on approach and common sense ideas” are right for his middle-class constituents in Queens.

Councilman Vincent Ignizo pointed to the specific case of Fresh Kills Landfill, crediting Lhota with fulfilling then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s promise to close it.

The fourth member of the delegation, Staten Island councilman Jimmy Oddo, said simply that Lhota is “by far the superior candidate in the Republican primary.”

Bronx County GOP Chairman Jay Savino and the executive committee of the Bronx County Republican Committee have also placed their support behind Lhota, after a Monday night meeting that Savino said “provided [us] an opportunity to learn more about Joe on a variety of topics.”

“An open and honest exchange” apparently proved to the committee members that Lhota’s “proven leadership, in and outside of government, is exactly what New York City needs.”

Last week, two hours after former candidate Tom Allon dropped out of the race, reporters crashed a lunch Allon and Lhota were having in Midtown.

Lhota and Allon denied the lunch signaled an endorsement by Allon, calling the timing of the apparently long-standing meeting “happenstance.”

But Allon did credit Lhota with much of his decision to drop out.

“One of the reasons I felt comfortable jumping out of the race is because I knew Joe jumped in,” Allon said. “I feel that voters have a good choice now.”

When asked if he would be willing to offer Allon a spot in his potential administration as Catsimatidis had, Lhota responded, “It’s illegal to do that.”

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Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney endorsed Speaker Christine Quinn for mayor this morning, despite vigorous criticism just last month of Quinn’s refusal to call a vote on a paid sick leave bill.  

Quinn has maintained that the bill does not make economic sense at this time, as opponents to the bill have contended that provisions buried in the legislation would inflict city fines on thousands of additional businesses.

The legislation reportedly gives the Health Department jurisdiction to fine for failing to post noticed in every language spoken by the workforce, and failing to keep records for three years of sick time taken by each worker, as well as penalties for refusing to give employees sick days. It would require employers with more than five employees to provide at least five sick days a year.

Last month, Maloney said, “The facts are enough to make you sick: America is the only industrialized nation in the world that fails to guarantee paid sick leave.”

“Here in New York, we can bypass congressional gridlock, enact paid sick leave, and make the Big Apple a national leader in protecting the health of our citizens,” Maloney declared.

A public hearing on the paid sick leave bill is scheduled for Friday.

Recently, an email was sent out with a statement allegedly from Quinn directing recipients to a fake website and announcing that she “stand[s] with Mayor Michael Bloomberg in opposing paid sick days for New Yorkers.”

The statement went on to say that 83 percent of city residents support paid sick days and a veto-proof majority of the City Council stands ready to approve a paid sick leave bill.

While the de Blasio campaign denied involvement in the fake site and email, spokesman Dan Levitan was quick to call attention to it, emailing a statement to reporters that said, “Whoever is behind this may have an odd sense of humor, but they do have better judgment for what’s right for New Yorkers than Speaker Quinn.”

At this morning’s announcement, Maloney acknowledged her disagreement with Quinn over paid sick leave, but insisted that “this is New York and people don’t always agree” and it’s necessary to “look at the whole picture.”

Quinn’s campaign said that the endorsement does not indicate a change of heart from the Speaker.

A source at the campaign confirmed that the Speaker agrees with paid sick leave in principal but does not believe the current economic conditions are right for it.

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Republican mayoral hopeful John Catsimatidis released the first 30-second radio ad of the 2013 mayoral campaign this week to some tepid reviews, with the New York Times describing it as “a scrappy, somewhat corny… stilted exchange.”

In the ad, a male voice inquires as to whether his companion knows who Catsimatidis is.

A female voice replies, “You mean the immigrant who came here with nothing, grew up poor in Harlem, and is a successful independent businessmen?”

The male voice proceeds to praise Catsimatidis as a “common sense guy” and promise that as mayor “he won’t owe anyone anything” because he’s “not a career politician.”

The ad ends with the woman asking her companion to repeat his pronunciation of the candidate’s name.

The candidate also recently conducted a robocall in which, Capital New York noted, he repeated his own name four times.

A recent Qunnipiac poll found that 86 percent of all voters haven’t heard enough about Catsimatidis to form an opinion.

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