Governor Deval Patrick just keeps racking up the quid pro quos from campaign donations from the unions...but don't expect Attorney General Martha Coakley to investigate this one.

A construction trade group is urging Attorney General Martha Coakley to probe allegations that the Patrick administration is strong-arming a state labor board whose actions have hurt unions that donated to the governor’s campaign.

The Merit Construction Alliance, which represents nonunion contractors, sent a letter to Coakley yesterday suggesting that the administration may have illegally interfered with the work of the quasi-judicial Labor Relations Commission.

“My position is that the administration is being very heavy-handed,” said the group’s executive director, Ron Cogliano, who expressed concern that Gov. Deval Patrick’s top labor aide, Suzanne Bump, has improperly tried to influence the commission by pushing to eliminate its budget, among other actions.

A Patrick aide declined to comment yesterday on the request for an investigation, reiterating that the matter has been probed internally and no wrongdoing was found. Coakley also declined comment.

Declined to comment, or is that code for "declined to investigate"?

In his budget plan for next year, Patrick stripped funding from the commission and transferred it to a new division of labor relations, whose duties and organization have not been defined. The move came after the commission’s actions hurt labor groups that gave heavily to Patrick’s campaign, prompting two commissioners to accuse him of improper retaliation.

Big surprise--Deval Patrick catering to the unions that gave money to him. I'm sure the same unions gave plenty to Martha Coakley as well, so we can expect the investigation to be permanently shelved.

Please remember that it was then candidate Deval Patrick who, at the fifth gubernatorial debate, said he was "proud" of his union endorsements and there would be no 'quid pro quos' in his administration. Of course, he also said that Michael Dukakis was a good governor at the very same debate.