Hoylman, who narrowly lost a Lower Manhattan Council race in 2001, is the well-known chairman of Community Board 2. Others expected to run for the seat include Corey Johnson, the chairman of Community Board 4, and Yetta Kurland, a civil rights lawyer and radio host. All the candidates are LGBT identified.

Hoylman’s Council campaign committee popped up the very day that Quinn stormed out of a rally heralding the passage of the living wage bill, after an attendee criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg –  a close Quinn ally who opposes the bill.

And in his Council race, Hoylman faces a similar balancing act as Quinn, as he runs in a liberal West Side district. The personal politics he espouses are liberal. Yet he has long served as the executive vice-president and general counsel of the Partnership for New York City, a pro-business group with close ties to Quinn and Bloomberg.

The situation has grown even more complex for Hoylman after Quinn decided to drop a contentious provision from the living wage bill three weeks ago. That led the the pro-business group, which had initially supported a compromise version of the bill, to drop its support.

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