Who is running for New York City Council speaker?

Julie Menin

The front-runner

Where’s home? Upper East Side, Manhattan

Identity: white, Jewish woman

Mayoral endorsement: None

Working with: Austin Shafran of Greenbook Strategies

What’s her deal? If there’s a front-runner in the City Council speaker race – and some argue crowning one at this early stage is foolish – it’s Julie Menin. The Upper East Side council member and three-time former leader of a major city agency has been running for speaker for ages. She’s been all over the city campaigning for current members and new candidates in close races – and has kicked about $27,000 in donations their way. In a race where council members tend to keep their votes close to the vest until the last minute, Menin already has a couple members, including Democrat Shaun Abreu and Republican Joann Ariola, on record supporting her. 

Hitting the pavement for fellow members doesn’t win a speaker race on its own, of course. Menin is seen as a top choice for unions she’s worked with to pass legislation, including the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council. She’s attractive to county party leaders (not to mention council members) who are wary of the council being led by someone further left under a likely Mamdani administration. 

But therein lies Menin’s potential weakness too. Some members of the council’s 17-person Progressive Caucus want a speaker who will work in lockstep with a probable Mamdani administration’s priorities and are looking to elect one of their own to the position. Menin is making the case that she can do that, while leading the body as a co-equal branch with oversight responsibilities. Like all other speaker candidates, Menin has met with Mamdani. “I had a productive conversation with him about the shared goals that the council has and that he has around affordability,” Menin said, noting a major common interest in universal child care, a goal she’s already passed legislation to advance.

Menin is also talking about reforms to create more transparency and efficiency in the budget and legislative processes. Council members who aren’t on the Budget Negotiating Team are sometimes given presentations on the budget a day before voting on it. “Documents aren't given out in advance. All of that, quite frankly, needs to change,” she said.

Crystal Hudson

The Brooklynite

Where’s home? Prospect Heights, Brooklyn

Identity: Black LGBTQ woman, of Jamaican and Honduran descent

Mayoral endorsement: Zohran Mamdani

Working with: Camille Rivera and Sydney Watnick of New Deal Strategies

What’s her deal? Crystal Hudson has also been laying the groundwork with members and outside stakeholders for months. She has campaigned with current and future colleagues and made plenty of donations too. Labor unions like her and see her as someone they can work with.

But when it comes to outside influence, it’s the likely incoming Mayor Mamdani who could be a major boon for her, depending on if and how he chooses to get involved in the race. (The assumption from most outside the campaign is that if he gets involved, Mamdani would support a Progressive Caucus member aligned with his agenda, but he has not tipped his hand in any direction.)

When members and outside influencers say they’re looking for a progressive member who will partner with the other side of City Hall, it’s Hudson’s name that is often mentioned first. And Council Member Carmen De La Rosa’s recent exit from the speaker race (and her endorsement of Hudson) only narrows the field further to Hudson’s likely benefit. “I want to make sure that we have a body who can deliver for New Yorkers in terms of affordability, making the city as safe as it can be, working with the mayor to make sure that everybody's agenda can move forward, rather than obstructing any potential for opportunity to deliver for New Yorkers,” Hudson said. Still, like all other candidates, Hudson also emphasizes the body’s independence and oversight role. “We will speak out when we disagree and stand with the mayor when we agree.” Despite speaking to their areas of policy alignment, Hudson is decidedly not aligned with the political organization that Mamdani came up through, the Democratic Socialists of America.

While Hudson, like Menin, says she has a wide coalition (“Everyone is welcome under my tent”), a big part of that coalition would likely include progressives and Brooklyn members. (Whether that will end up including a nudge from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, with whom she has a good relationship, is unclear.) 

Hudson says her experience – working in central staff prior to being elected as well as being at the forefront of tough legislative debates like the How Many Stops Act – prepares her for the ups and downs of the gig.

Amanda Farías

The majority leader

Where’s home? Soundview, Bronx

Identity: Afro-Latina woman, of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent

Mayoral endorsement: Zohran Mamdani

Working with: Becky Stern of Pythia Public Affairs

What’s her deal? Currently the City Council’s majority leader, Amanda Farías has also been in the speaker race for a while, giving her plenty of time to lay groundwork with members and pitch some donations. She is largely aligned with Mamdani’s agenda, while not being affiliated with the DSA. Farías describes her style as “progressive pragmatism,” and has experience navigating a district that is far from uniformly left. 

Her ability to compete to be labor unions’ top choice is less assured, and while she has a good relationship with the Bronx Democratic Party, they’re not yet committed and could end up moving in concert with Queens County as they have in years past. Farías, however, is confident that there’s still plenty of time left on the clock in this race. “The time that we have left to really run this race, there’s going to be, I think, a lot more conversations, and a lot more momentum or movement towards finding alignment with both labor (and) county stakeholders and members,” she said.

Farías is also one of the candidates who is eager to see a process with less outside influence. “I think it's important for members to have a larger say in who they get to work with, especially in leadership and how the council is developed,” Farías said. “I think that's particularly important for a predominantly person of color body, where we’re seeing working class families attacked right now.”

A member of the Progressive Caucus, Farías can easily point to a track record of managing the large, diverse and sometimes at-odds Democratic conference. That makes her a known quantity among the members. Track records can have downsides too, though: People can come to know, and pick apart, your leadership style. Like Hudson, her first term as a council member followed previous stints working as council staff, giving her a longer lens into the body’s inner workings.

Chris Marte

The outsider

Where’s home? Lower East Side, Manhattan

Identity: Latino man, the son of Dominican American immigrants

Mayoral endorsement: Zohran Mamdani

Working with: No consultant yet

What’s his deal? Council Member Chris Marte knows he’s an underdog in the speaker race. Though he says he’s in a good place after having met with the vast majority of the body, he’s not most members’ first pick. “I think my strategy is for the folks who aren’t fully on board or super strong supporters, I want to be their No. 2 (choice),” he said. 

Marte is also running a unique campaign for the internal race. To start, he’s got a public platform that he launched with a press conference. While most candidates talk about reforms they’d institute to make the body more transparent and fair – a rhetorical no-brainer for candidates – being a reformer is essentially the basis of Marte’s argument. His 26-point policy plan consists almost entirely of proposed reforms and commitments that will likely be attractive to new members or those who have clashed with leadership, as Marte has. Among them: Bills with 26 sponsors automatically go to a hearing, bills with a supermajority of sponsors automatically go to a vote and punitive action by leadership will be a thing of the past. Marte sees this approach as giving his campaign broad appeal. “Whether you’re a conservative member or the most progressive member, you have had that experience where your bill has been stopped, your budget request has been stopped,” he said. 

Marte is a member of the Progressive Caucus. But he’s not someone who has acted in perfect alignment with internal factions. He’s taken some controversial stances that have ruffled feathers or put colleagues in awkward positions, like the bill to protect city retirees’ health care plans and fighting the Elizabeth Street Garden housing development. (Both efforts have been successful so far.)

Marte’s campaign would likely need a major intervention to pick up steam – like a front-running candidate falling apart or a major outside influencer weighing in on his behalf. But in the meantime, it seems to have injected the race with a serious conversation about internal reforms.

Selvena Brooks-Powers

The quiet campaign

Where’s home? Rockaway Beach, Queens

Identity: Black woman, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants

Mayoral endorsement: None

Working with: No consultant yet

What’s her deal? Selvena Brooks-Powers is just a week into officially running for speaker. But the Southeast Queens council member and current majority whip of the council has some potential strengths that could help her catch up. She’s already in a leadership position. Her more moderate politics could appeal to those looking for more of a check on a likely Mamdani administration. And she’s got a partner in Rep. Greg Meeks, who has traditionally been an influential voice in the race. Though he hasn’t publicly weighed in, observers have speculated that Meeks would support Menin for similar reasons. But as a fellow southeast Queens rep, Brooks-Powers could have a shot at his backing too. 

“For me, the role of the speaker is someone that is going to help to create harmony within the body so that we’re able to be most effective and be able to deliver,” she said.

Brooks-Powers had a split with friend and current City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams when she (along with Meeks) backed Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary over Adrienne Adams. Still, Brooks-Powers is pitching her campaign based on her experience in leadership (and in five budget cycles and counting). In 2029, more than three-dozen council members will be term-limited. “A lot of us have our own visions and our legacies we’d like to be able to leave behind,” she said. “The body is really going to need to be led by someone that will have a steady hand.”

Like Menin, Brooks-Powers has not endorsed in the general election for mayor. (Menin, however, didn’t endorse in the primary either.) But Brooks-Powers has met with Mamdani and said she would work with the next administration on areas of shared priorities.