Unlike Almost Any Other Food In Its Fundamental Nature

“Mr. de Blasio, a politician who values loyalty deeply, has found ways to give back”:

When New York City banned whole milk from public schools in 2006, seeking to reduce obesity and improve students’ health, a trade group for the American dairy industry hired a well-connected Washington lobbyist to fight back.

Harold M. Ickes, the lobbyist, was a towering figure — a member of a prominent liberal family, a trusted counselor to Bill and Hillary Clinton and a former White House deputy chief of staff. But his firm’s appeals to the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg were rebuffed.

The man who would one day succeed Mr. Bloomberg, however, was more receptive.

That man, Bill de Blasio, then a councilman from Park Slope, Brooklyn, embraced Mr. Ickes’s cause, sponsoring a resolution calling for a review of the policy and accusing city officials of “radically” changing menus without listening to parents’ concerns.

“The bottom line, in my view, is milk is unlike almost any other food in its fundamental nature,” Mr. de Blasio said at the time. The policy stayed in place, but the dairy industry later thanked Mr. de Blasio for his “leading efforts on this issue.”

On his path to becoming mayor, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has long leaned on Mr. Ickes, whom he calls his closest mentor. A friend for three decades, Mr. Ickes, 76, has advised Mr. de Blasio’s campaigns, introduced him to wealthy donors and recommended him for a breakthrough job managing Mrs. Clinton’s run for United States Senate in 2000.

Mr. de Blasio, a politician who values loyalty deeply, has found ways to give back.

Shortly after the mayor’s election in 2013, Mr. Ickes opened a New York branch of his lobbying firm. Although he had not lobbied in the city for nearly a decade, Mr. Ickes proved a quick study, collecting about $1 million in fees and securing wins for major clients.

Among his victories, one stands out: At Mr. de Blasio’s urging, the City Council passed an unusual bill in 2014 that gave $42 million in wages to public school bus drivers represented by Mr. Ickes. The wages came on top of an existing city contract, raising objections from some council leaders and government watchdog groups.

In emails to aides to Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Ickes personally suggested changes to the bill’s language, records show.

The mayor has said his friendship with Mr. Ickes does not influence his decision-making, or the city’s treatment of his mentor’s clients. But an examination of emails and other public records obtained by The New York Times shows that the men’s close relationship has given Mr. Ickes extraordinary access, enabling him to push his clients’ interests directly to the city’s top officials.