Opinion: Speaker with a smart voice

Effective city government is a team sport. If you have elected leaders of different branches of government feuding or trying to out-do each other, the biggest losers are the citizens of New York and of our country. 

Think Bill de Blasio vs. Andrew Cuomo. Newt Gingrich vs. Bill Clinton. Adrienne Adams vs. Eric Adams.

The New York City Council – the legislative branch of local government – made a swift decision just before Thanksgiving, when a supermajority (36 of 51) of members announced they planned to elevate East Side Council Member Julie Menin to speaker, making her the body’s leader for the next four years. The official speaker vote isn’t till early January, but Menin’s main rival for the speakership, Brooklyn Council Member Crystal Hudson, has effectively conceded the race, so that vote will merely rubber stamp what was decided last week.

Menin forged a wide coalition of supporters – from very progressive leaders like Queens Council Member Shekar Krishnan to Republican Minority Leader Joann Ariola. All of the incoming City Council members also ultimately pledged to support Menin.

Menin locked up the majority of her colleagues by November 26, more than one month before the official vote and much earlier than the last few speakers did, going back to Christine Quinn almost a quarter-century ago.

Many in the political world were waiting for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani or one of his surrogates to put their thumb on the scale and attempt to influence the vote in favor of Hudson, who is thought to be more ideologically aligned with Mamdani.

That’s always a risky move for an incoming mayor. Sometimes it works, as when de Blasio succeeded at the last second in late 2013 getting his preferred candidate, Melissa Mark Viverito, into the speaker role by cutting a deal with then Brooklyn Democratic machine leader Vito Lopez.

But it can also backfire. Eric Adams and his top aides bungled the 2021 Speaker race by putting their muscle behind unpopular Queens Council Member Francisco Moya, which resulted in a last-minute surge by then little-known Queens CM Adrienne Adams.

For the last four years, Speaker Adams was a constant thorn to Eric Adams – who, despite their surnames, are not related but coincidentally attended the same Queens high school in Bayside.

Though some reports indicated that Mamdani and his team advocated for Hudson behind the scenes, it never seemed to be more than a half-hearted effort. Mamdani may have planned to eventually take a more active role in the process – or even back Hudson publicly – but we will likely never know his plans, since Menin, her supporters in organized labor and Queens county leader Rep. Greg Meeks were able to lock down a supermajority of supporters very early in the process.

Mamdani might have preferred Hudson, but Menin will very likely prove to be a strong partner to the mayor-elect and his team on many of his signature campaign issues. While some Mamdani supporters worry she will try to sabotage his agenda, Menin is actually much more progressive than she’s often portrayed – otherwise, large labor unions like the United Federation of Teachers, Hotel & Gaming Trades Council and 32BJ SEIU wouldn’t have lined up behind her so strongly.

On universal child care, the most ambitious part of Mamdani’s affordability agenda, Menin has a very strong track record: over the past four years in the City Council, she has spearheaded the passage of five bills to expand access to child care for young parents.

Menin’s resume is a very impressive one. Unlike the mayor-elect, she has tons of government experience.

She first made her name in public service right after 9/11, when she founded the nonprofit “Wall Street Rising” to help small businesses rebuild after the tragic attack decimated lower Manhattan.

Menin learned the difficulties of being a small business owner when she created Vine, a food market and caterer in the Financial District, which was adversely impacted in the aftermath of terrorist attacks.

She went on to become the chair of Community Board 1 in lower Manhattan, a key role in helping rebuild her former neighborhood both commercially and residentially. Today, lower Manhattan has become a desired family neighborhood, something that was unimaginable in the days preceding and right after 9/11.

The one issue that defined Menin’s principled and courageous approach to public service may be the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” – a highly charged debate about whether to build an Islamic community center and mosque (originally known as Cordoba House and later renamed Park51) in lower Manhattan, a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. Conservative and Islamophobic critics objected to the idea of such a community center being built in close proximity to the tragic site of 9/11.  

To her credit, Menin forcefully and diplomatically led the community board to a 29-1 vote in favor of the Islamic community center and mosque, but she also wisely urged that an interfaith center (where all religions can worship) be part of the plans.

That approach to public policy has defined Menin’s career. She went on to lead the Department of Consumer Affairs in the de Blasio administration, where she oversaw implementation of the progressive policy of mandatory paid sick leave while also decreasing small business fines by 50% – helping workers gain more rights while and recognizing that small business owners needed a more business-friendly city to thrive and provide more good jobs. At Consumer Affairs, she also created NYC Kids Rise, a 501(c)(3) organization that has created 282,000 college savings accounts worth $50 million for public school kindergarteners.

Menin later took over the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), an often overlooked agency that helps bring in more than $9 billion annually to the city’s economy. During her tenure, she lured the Grammy Awards to New York after a 15-year absence, which contributed more than $200 million to the city’s coffers. 

While leading MOME, she was responsible for launching a number of new programs, including: a multipart initiative to support women both behind and in front of the camera in film, theater and television; the Made in NY Writers Room, which awarded fellowship and mentor opportunities to television writers from underrepresented backgrounds; and NYC Film Green, an environmental initiative to decrease the carbon footprint of the film and television industry.

As de Blasio’s go-to manager (not unlike Kathryn Garcia), Menin was then promoted to be director of the New York City Census initiative for the 2020 count, a vital effort to ensure proportionate federal funding as well as seats in Congress. Menin advocated strongly against the Trump administration’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Under her direction, 629,000 residents were added for New York City, the largest population growth of any city in America.

I could go on for a long time listing Menin’s impressive track record, but you get the gist here – she is a results-oriented manager who is talented at bringing all constituencies to the table to hammer out agreements that are beneficial for all New Yorkers.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Menin will be the first Jewish City Council Speaker. (Other Jewish politicians have led the City Council, such as former City Council President Andrew Stein, but Menin will be the first one to become speaker, a position created in 1992.) Like me, she is the child of Holocaust survivors, which brings a different perspective to leadership.

At a time when antisemitism is on the rise both in New York and nationally, it’s heartening that three of the top four leaders in city government – Menin, Comptroller-elect Mark Levine and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch – are proud Jews who will look out for all New Yorkers, including the city’s large Jewish community.

Going into 2026, New York has an exciting and talented leadership team in place: Mamdani, a charismatic visionary who galvanized a wide coalition including record numbers of Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z voters; and Menin, the embodiment of an experienced and highly competent public servant who knows how to collaborate and get things done.

Mamdani and his team should be pleased that they will have such a talented, progressive partner on the other side of the building at City Hall. It bodes well for an exciting and productive four years.