NYC Council not ready to vote on controversial rules tweak

With just a few months to go in New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ tenure, the Southeast Queens leader is pushing to overhaul the chamber’s rules. But facing concerns from fellow members that they’d give more power to the speaker’s office – and over the short notice itself – that vote will no longer be taking place at Thursday’s stated meeting as previously reported.

A City Council spokesperson told City & State that a future date has yet to be decided upon, though discussions over the changes are ongoing.

“This is an important process that has to include all the members,” said City Council Member Keith Powers, chair of the Rules Committee. “We’re continuing to listen to the voices of all the council members about what is the best way to move forward.”

The rule changes, first reported by Politico New York, were introduced less than a week ago in a 44-page resolution sponsored by Adams. A committee hearing on the changes was held Monday morning, though few people attended. Ben Weinberg, director of public policy for the good government group Citizens Union, was the lone member of the public to testify. 

Most of the provisions outlined throughout the proposal are simple tweaks – cleaning up language and grammar or bringing written policy in line with current practice. But others, like raising the number of members required to move a bill to the floor when the speaker opposes it (from seven to 11) and barring committee chairs’ from picking their counsel, are more controversial. The same goes for several provisions related to the legislative drafting process – such as loosening the rules around the timeline for council staff to draft legislation and requiring members to submit bills to the legislative division for review before they can be introduced.

Part of the concern has stemmed from the proposal’s timing. Adams will no longer be in the City Council in a few months due to term limits and a new speaker will be elected soon, making some members reluctant to weigh in ahead of such significant changes. “It’s good to have a strong speaker, but he has to be a good speaker,” City Council Member Gale Brewer explained. “You don’t want to make the speaker strong when you don’t like the speaker. It’s a little bit of a double edged sword.”

Council Member Lincoln Restler said that if there was a guarantee Adams was going to continue being speaker, he’d have fewer concerns about the proposed rules during Thursday’s hearing. 

“We don’t know who the next speaker is going to be. We don’t know who the speaker after that is going to be,” Restler said. “We’ve seen this body frankly function in more authoritative ways in the past and it worries me that we could have a speaker again that brings that kind of orientation to her management to the body.”

City Council spokesperson Rendy Desamours said that the proposed changes aren’t coming from nowhere – and that most aren’t substantive. "These proposals are the product of work that’s been happening since 2023, which has included engagement with members, good government groups, and other stakeholders,” he said in a statement.

Other proposed changes are less divisive. One would formally allow the speaker to establish policies and procedures “to protect the health and safety” of council members and their staff if the governor or mayor declares a state of emergency. Another, likely inspired by the Republican caucus’ snafu to elect a new minority leader earlier this year, clarifies that a quorum must be present to take such a vote. Others pertain to decorum, like requiring any remarks made during debate to be directed toward the chair and to avoid personal attacks on colleagues. 

As they only pertain to the 51 members and their staff, these types of internal changes to City Council rules are relatively obscure. They aren’t technically changes to city law – hence why Adams’ latest proposal is a resolution instead of a typical piece of legislation. Those rules determine everything from how bills are drafted and advanced to the allocation of resources like discretionary funding and staffing. Still, that hasn’t stopped council members from engaging in robust debate over similar proposed changes in the past.

Adams initially tried to implement an overhaul of the City Council’s rules after she was elected speaker in 2022, but ultimately killed the process following a wave of protest from unhappy colleagues. Some of the changes put forward then appear in her latest proposal.

The last major change to the City Council’s rules came a little more than a decade ago back when Melissa Mark-Viverito was speaker. Following months of debate, members passed a package of measures in 2014, including new rules to limit the speaker’s power to use discretionary funding to reward or punish lawmakers, heighten transparency and create a unit dedicated to drafting legislation.

News that the vote wouldn’t be happening Thursday was met with relief – both from council members and good government groups like Citizens Union. “We are pleased that they are taking more time to think through this process, get more feedback and input and that it won’t be rushed into a one week approval process,” Weinberg said.