NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn has endorsed a bid by former Councilman and ex-Bloomberg administration official Guillermo Linares to return to public life by running for the 72nd Assembly District seat being vacated by Senate hopeful Adriano Espaillat.

“I want to help my friend Guillermo write another chapter in an already historic and distinguished career in public service,” Quinn said in a statement released by Linares’ campaign.

“We need his intelligence, integrity and experience in Albany fighting for equal rights and equality of opportunity for all New Yorkers.”

Linares served in the Council from 1992 to 2001 when he was term-limited out of office. He was the city’s first Dominican-American elected official and won an eight-way primary, defeating, among others, Ydanis Rodriquez, who now holds Linares’ old seat.

Linares tried to re-gain that seat after Miguel Martinez resigned in the wake of a member item/corruption scandal, giving up his post as Bloomberg’s commissioner for Immigrant Affairs to run. But Linares, who has been bedeviled by his own member item issues, was bounced from the ballot.

He ended up working on Bloomberg’s successful bid for a third term.

Linares has Espaillat’s support in his quest for the assemblyman’s soon-to-be-former seat. (Espaillat is running for the seat Sen. Eric Schneiderman is vacating to run for attorney general). Schneiderman is backing him, too.

This is noteworthy because the three pols have a tangled history.

In 1999, Linares ran for Democratic district leader against a man described as Espaillat’s “protégé” – Martinez, who had held the DL post since 1997. The onetime protégé sought to unseat his mentor in a 2008 primary challenge. Espaillat, who was backed by Bloomberg, won that round.

The 2001 race for Linares’ seat pitted Martinez against a former Linares aide, Victor Morisete-Romero, who finished fourth in the primary.

In 2002, Linares mounted a failed primary challenge to Schneiderman, whose district lines had been redrawn to include much of Washington Heights. Bloomberg endorsed Linares against Schneiderman, and then later hired Linares in 2004.

Linares, who has the Working Families Party line, is not running unopposed. Former Assemblyman Nelson Denis is also running. Julissa Gómez, Gabriela Rosa, and Miguel Estrella also indicated an interest in Espaillat’s seat; we’ll see who files what on Thursday.

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