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Meet the voters of New York’s 12th Congressional District

Annie McDonough — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

New York’s 12th Congressional District, the Manhattan district running from the Upper West and Upper East Sides down to Chelsea and Stuyvesant Town, is the city’s wealthiest. It is home to Billionaires’ Row, Museum Mile, Broadway, Meta’s New York City headquarters and the United Nations.

Two of NY-12’s many influential residents – Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin – have stayed conspicuously silent about their picks in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. But they’re not the only bold-faced names casting votes in this election. City & State spoke to some of the district’s other notables – and a handful of engaged voters we met along the way at the race’s televised debates, forums and other campaign events – about which of the eight candidates they’re backing, the issues that matter to them, and what NY-12 should be known for beyond its money and power. Conversations have been edited for length and clarity. Shoutout to New York Magazine’s Look Book, which inspired this format.

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Like AOC, but to the left

Holly Pretsky — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

In the summer of 2014, state Sen. Adriano Espaillat was locked in his second epic primary against the 44-year incumbent “Lion of Lenox Avenue” Rep. Charlie Rangel. Already, Espaillat had begun to form his uptown political alliance, mentoring candidates and boasting about how many mayoral hopefuls came to the Indian Road Cafe to court his support and the support of a growing Dominican voting bloc. Espaillat would lose to Rangel, just as he had two years prior. But the loss would harden his resolve to wrest the 13th Congressional District seat from the Black establishment to become the nation’s first Dominican member of Congress.

“This is the guy who came here as an undocumented immigrant and clawed his way up, forcing his way in, beating down the doors of the machine,” said New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, a loyal ally. “Nothing was handed to this guy.”

That same summer, a 20-year-old Columbia University student named Darializa Avila Chevalier was in Palestine – and her worldview was being turned upside down. With funding from school, she took an internship in Nablus, one of the largest cities in the West Bank, somewhat on a whim. For almost two months, she lived and worked at a center run by Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, teaching English to Palestinian kids as young as three. Right after she got back, the 2014 Gaza war began, a conflict in which more than 2,000 Palestinians died and 10,000 were injured.

“That was a really formative period for me, because I was essentially living in the heart of the occupation and seeing the way that Palestinians had to navigate all these systems, the impact that it had on children as young as the ones that I was working with,” Avila Chevalier said. “I came back, and I couldn't unsee all those things. And I started seeing them in our own systems, right? Our systems of policing, of deportation, of the controlling of our movement.”

Avila Chevalier visited the West Bank in 2014. She’s pictured here with a Banksy in Bethlehem. Credit: Courtesy of Darializa Avila Chevalier

In other words, that summer was radicalizing. Avila Chevalier was going through something many young people can relate to: a dawning of global consciousness, a realization that the way things are presented is different from the way things really are, a painful awakening to the disparities of human experience. Many people draw the curtain on these epiphanies as they enter adulthood – and this is seen as a mark of maturity. As we all now know because her old and not-so-old tweets saying things like “Fuck Kamala Harris” and “no more police at all ever” have been repeatedly published, Avila Chevalier did not moderate.

“The connections just solidified in my mind,” she said. “Oh, these are not only like systems, they are the same system. It was the same tear gas made in the USA that was being dropped on Gaza that was also being used against (Black Lives Matter) protesters in Ferguson.”

Within the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization Avila Chevalier officially joined less than a year ago and which voted overwhelmingly to back her in January, skeptics have called her a “Palestine ultra.” It’s an issue the now 32-year-old has oriented her whole adult life around. It has animated her interest in immigration policy, in anti-terrorism surveillance and in racial justice. It led to her conversion to Islam and to her protesting the ongoing Israel-Hamas war from the moment it began. And it animates her attempt to unseat Espaillat, now a five-term Congress member, more than a decade after that turning point summer.

That this is the candidate hand-picked by the primary factory Justice Democrats, backed by New York City DSA and endorsed by an enthusiastic Mayor Zohran Mamdani suggests that they believe pro-Palestinian activism is a winning issue. This is true particularly among the young people who showed up for Mamdani in droves last summer, but Avila Chevalier is testing the theory across a swath of Democrats in a district with a diverse primary electorate.

“We're in an interesting moment where new people are being politicized by the thousands through the anti-war movement,” said DSA co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo. “And it makes sense that a candidate who's been at the center of anti-imperialism has been able to tap into that interest and that outrage and agitation.”

It also speaks to the vulnerability of Espaillat – and to the weakening political power structure that he painstakingly cultivated. The Upper Manhattan and Bronx branch of the New York City chapter of DSA is the organization’s fastest growing. Mamdani won the district, which stretches across Manhattan north of 96th Street and includes a small portion of the West Bronx, by 13 points in the primary last summer, walloping Andrew Cuomo, whom Espaillat endorsed. Espaillat quickly adjusted, backing Mamdani right after he won the primary, but his overtures to Mamdani’s movement failed. After Mamdani endorsed Avila Chevalier on MS NOW last month, Gordillo said 200 volunteers have joined the campaign every week.

“We're talking about a 10-year Democratic incumbent running against an avowed leftist,” said political commentator and left whisperer Michael Lange, who has written extensively about the race. “Like, someone who might be the most left-leaning member of Congress if she wins.”

Shaun Abreu, who attended Columbia at the same time as Avila Chevalier, worked on Espaillat’s campaigns. Credit: Courtesy of Shaun Abreu

You can see how Espaillat might be bewildered by the situation. In some ways, Avila Chevalier, who is the daughter of Dominican immigrants and who speaks fluent Spanish, could be familiar to him. In another timeline, she might have ended up like 35-year-old City Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu, who worked on Espaillat’s state Senate and congressional campaigns while a student at Columbia and whom Espaillat mentored into his City Council seat. “He's someone who has really looked out for young people, people like myself, the young generation of elected officials, and he's opened a lot of doors and opportunities,” Abreu said.

But here she is, as if from nowhere, challenging Espaillat, the original insurgent, with a totally different worldview, with a totally different relationship to the district. And he could very well lose to her. “I think it's up for grabs,” said Eli Valentin, author of “Politicking in the Barrio: Essays on Latino Politics in New York.” “Eight months ago, we would not have thought this was going to be possible.”

At a recent rally in Harlem with union supporters and elected officials, the 71-year-old Congress member was in true form – a master operator who has been forming alliances (and making enemies) since he first ran for City Council in 1989. The location of the rally, in front of the housing complex Esplanade Gardens, home to many Black voters, was telling. Espaillat, who was accused earlier in his career of capitalizing on racial politics to pit Black and Hispanic voters against each other, is now hearkening back to the 1989 mayoral race, talking about “a David Dinkins-type coalition,” where “a Black and brown labor coalition comes together to fight for a seat at the table.” In a district with a primary electorate that, at least in 2025, was a pretty even mix of white, Hispanic and Black voters, he seemed to be aiming for a coalition of the latter two. He introduced myriad labor leaders and elected officials without a script, alternating between English and Spanish, touting long relationships with each one. It was an unusually cold and windy day just after Mamdani announced he was endorsing Avila Chevalier – reneging on a commitment he had made to Espaillat.

“He's in the fight for his life, for his political career, and I'm proud to stand by him, and proud to stand by our community,” said Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, another Espaillat mentee. “Unfortunately, the candidate that has been chosen by the DSA and the mayor, I’ve never met, I’ve never seen, really.” It was a sentiment many shared. Espaillat went so far as to call for people like Avila Chevalier, who was raised in Florida but lived in New York City since she moved here for college 14 years ago, to be sent “back home packing wherever they came from.” It was the kind of thing you say if you don’t totally understand what you’re up against.

Espaillat held a windy labor rally with elected allies in Harlem. Credit: Holly Pretsky

“The permission that I needed”

That inability to “unsee” after she returned from Nablus led Avila Chevalier to join the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at Columbia, where she co-founded the campaign to get the university to divest from Israeli assets. She studied Middle Eastern Studies, and went on to pursue a doctorate from the CUNY Graduate Center in sociology. Her unfinished dissertation focuses on the connection between the criminal legal system and deportations of immigrants and “on antiBlackness and securitization as undergirding ideological projects of this pipeline.” She collaborated with civil rights attorney Ramzi Kassem, who is now Mamdani’s chief counsel, to advocate for the release of Abdikadir Mohamed, a legal permanent resident of Somali origin who was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport and held in immigration custody for more than a year. To support herself while she worked on her dissertation, she took a job as an investigator with public defense practice The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. The day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that launched the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, she was in Times Square with her keffiyeh on, advocating for Palestinian liberation at a rally that startled and frightened many Jewish New Yorkers. “I can only say I have been advocating for the human rights of Palestinians for most of my adult life,” she said. “Whenever anything happens on the ground (in Israel), there's always a really outsized reaction that costs thousands of people their lives, and that is what I was worried about.”

She threw herself into organizing against the war, focusing on her alma mater. She was there as an alumni organizer from the first day tents popped up on Columbia’s campus. She would go teach at Lehman College and NYU during the day, then come back to the encampment until late into the evening. A week after Palestinian campus activist Mahmoud Khalil, whom she calls a friend, was detained by Department of Homeland Security officers in March 2025, she wrote an op-ed defending him in USA Today. “Relying on racist tropes that depict Arab men as national security threats, President Trump has detained and defamed Mahmoud and denied him due process,” she wrote, calling the move “an authoritarian power grab.”

At a Memorial Day rally overlooking the George Washington Bridge in Washington Heights, it was clear that for Avila Chevalier, every issue connects to the Middle East. To describe how Espaillat had betrayed the district on immigration, she talked about his failure to stand up for Khalil. To describe how Congress had failed on affordability, she said she is “tired of being told that there is never enough money to feed our children while there is always enough money to bomb schoolchildren abroad.” Her primary attack against Espaillat, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the first formerly undocumented member of Congress, is that he is funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This cycle, AIPAC has directed roughly $145,000 to Espaillat’s campaign from about 100 donors as of the end of March. As of three weeks before the primary, he had about $1 million cash on hand, compared to Avila Chevalier’s $230,000. He’s also benefited from more than $3.4 million in super PAC spending so far – a number that’s sure to rise until the June 23 primary. Avila Chevalier also has been boosted by just over $1 million in spending from super PACs, including that of the Justice Democrats.

Getting grilled. Credit: Holly Pretsky

Avila Chevalier describes political conviction as a physical experience. “My politics have always felt like they’ve had a visceral sense about them, in the sense that when I see something that I feel is so deeply unjust, like, in my body, I just can't help but try to figure out what I can do about it.”

As she spent more and more time organizing, she was surrounded by Muslim friends and allies. Raised mostly by her mom, Maria, who worked several jobs throughout her childhood, the emphasis was always on education. She didn’t have a religious upbringing, though most of her family is Catholic. “When I felt most spiritual when I was doing work that was about my community,” she said. When Ramadan came around in 2019 or 2020, she decided to try fasting, “just to see if I could do it.” Then she fasted again the next year, and the next. The fourth year she was fasting, a friend gently confronted her: “She's like, ‘Darializa what are we doing here? Are you converting? Are you not? Like, why are you continuing to fast? What's the goal?’” It was the push she needed to admit that she actually wanted to be Muslim. “I remember being able to articulate that, and then a few days later going to Halaqa, which is like, Quran study, and the Imam said, ‘You know, Allah introduces himself to us as the most gracious and the most merciful. He will always be that, and whenever you're feeling any type of doubt, you can always come back to that,’ and I remember crying, and being like, ‘Oh, that was the permission that I needed.’”

“Darializa knew”

The narrative with Justice Democrats often goes that they pluck out reluctant candidates from obscurity after reviewing thousands of nominations – like with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But it was Avila Chevalier who first reached out to the organization, according to spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. It was February 2025. In an email, she introduced herself as part of the “collective Uptown for Palestine” and said she had been frustrated with the lack of response from Espaillat’s office on the issue. “A few of us have been thinking that it might be worth introducing an electoral strategy to unseat or push him on his policies,” she wrote. “Personally, my organizing experience is in grassroots/direct action work and would love to talk with someone who would be willing to do some strategy/power mapping with us on the feasibility of an electoral strategy against an establishment Dem.”

This was long before Mamdani’s campaign, for which Avila Chevalier was a field lead, proved that the 13th Congressional District could be fertile ground for a progressive upset. “We had not been looking at this district first and foremost, but we were definitely interested in doing so,” Andrabi said. “Darializa knew what the feeling on the ground was before any poll showed it.” (And polls have since shown it. A Justice Democrats survey from early June had her up 4 points. An internal Espaillat poll reportedly had the race “tightening.”)

Both Justice Democrats and Avila Chevalier say it took some convincing to actually get her to be the candidate to challenge Espaillat. Maybe, maybe not. She certainly fits the mold of a Justice Dems pick. Like AOC, she’s a young, dynamic, bilingual woman of color who comes from a working-class background, graduated from an elite college and looks great on TV. Whether she needed coaxing or not, what is certain is that the campaign has been brutal – especially as the political and media classes have caught up to the fact that this is a real race and started dissecting her vast online footprint. On the tweets from her 20s, Avila Chevalier said the old, fun Twitter was a haven after her brother died: “I am a millennial with an internet connection, and obviously the way I talk about these things now is not at all how I talked about them then.”

After a recent press conference denouncing Espaillat for his ties to AIPAC, Avila Chevalier’s aide tried to make the press get on line for one-on-one interviews with the candidate, as opposed to the more traditional media scrum. The reporters refused, crowding around Avila Chevalier, cameras up, microphones in her face. The questions came in a harsh staccato, a handy summary of the narrative she’s up against: “Darializa, can you respond to past comments that you said the U.S. was ‘a fucking disgrace’ and you also said the U.S. ‘bullied Russia?’” “Are you the gentrifiers’ candidate?” “Can you explain why you attended the rally on Oct. 8 in Times Square that considered the attacks from Hamas on Israel, the taking of 251 hostages, including children, as ‘resistance?’”

If she pulls this off – and many observers across the political spectrum think she has a real chance – these would be the kinds of inquiries she’d hear for two years straight. And Espaillat and his still-vibrant network of protegés are not keen to give this seat up. If she wins, she’ll have to defend the seat, maybe immediately. Ill-fated Justice Dem Jamaal Bowman lost reelection after just two terms. But she’s keeping things in perspective. Avila Chevalier said she was recently asked about community organizing: “How do you know what will work?” She said, "I don't. You just plant the seed, you just do the work, the rest is with God.”

– With reporting from Sahalie Donaldson

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Opinion: New York’s kids are falling through the cracks between our agencies

Althea Stevens — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Tease: The Portal software platform connects people across different New York City agencies and nonprofits who serve the city’s children, ensuring they don’t fall through the cracks – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to defund it, writes City Council Member Althea Stevens.

Categories: Opinion, New York City, budget

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Hed: Opinion: New York’s kids are falling through the cracks between our agencies

Dek: The mayor has proposed defunding the Portal software platform, which connects people across different city agencies and nonprofits who work with the city’s children.

By Althea Stevens

I have spent my career – first as a community organizer in the South Bronx, now as chair of the City Council's Committee on Children and Youth – watching New York City's services for young people work in parallel rather than together. The city runs extraordinary programs through the Administration for Children’s Services, Department of Youth and Community Development, Department of Homeless Services, our public schools, CUNY and dozens of nonprofit partners. Each of those agencies is full of people who care deeply about the children they serve. The problem has never been the people. The problem is that the systems they work in cannot see each other.

I see the cost of this every day in my district. A young person in foster care whose school doesn't know they have a caseworker. A family in a shelter whose children's attendance pattern is invisible to the staff who could help. A high school senior eligible for a CUNY College Now course no one ever told her about. A teenager who participated in a Summer Youth Employment Program last year and whose school has no idea the experience could count toward a graduation pathway. Tens of thousands of these gaps, every year, all of them invisible until the consequences arrive – a missed graduation, a delayed referral, a benefit that went unclaimed, a young person who ended up in a system no one wanted them in.

Recently, I co-chaired an oversight hearing in the Council on strengthening CUNY pathways for current and former foster youth. The testimony we heard was painful and familiar: young people falling through gaps between ACS, CUNY and NYCPS because no one system holds the full picture of their lives. Our recommendations included exactly what you would expect– better coordination, better data sharing, real-time information across agencies, support that actually follows the student.

What too few New Yorkers know is that one of the most promising answers to this problem is already operating quietly across our public school system.

It's called the Portal. It's a software platform built and maintained by the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools, and it does something that, until recently, no one in this city has managed to do at scale: it connects the people serving children across the agencies and organizations they rely on. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s executive budget calls for the Portal’s $8.9 million in funding to be cut, which would shift its users to other internal tools. That cut would be a mistake.

Nearly every public school in New York City uses it. So do Department of Homeless Services shelter staff supporting students in temporary housing. So do CUNY admissions and program staff helping high schoolers apply for college courses. So, increasingly, do community-based organizations providing tutoring, mentoring and family support. And starting next school year, foster care agencies will join them – under a pilot the city is developing with ACS.

The Portal is the data and management platform for Every Child and Family Is Known, the Children's Cabinet initiative serving thousands of children and families in the Bronx shelter

system. It tracks who has been connected to a Caring Adult in their child's school, what services families have requested and whether those services were actually delivered. It is, to my knowledge, the first time the city has built a real feedback loop for whether its services are reaching the families that need them.

This is exactly the kind of infrastructure the state comptroller's recent audit of New York City public school data practices called for: centralized, transparent, governed under a single set of agreements and accountable. It is also exactly the kind of cross-agency work I have spent the last four years arguing the city does not do enough of. Most importantly, it is working.

I want to be clear about what I am not arguing. I am not arguing that our agencies' internal teams should be replaced. They are doing essential work and they need more resources, not less. I am arguing that when a partnership with a mission-driven nonprofit produces what the Portal has produced – connecting agencies that have never been connected before, at a fraction of what an internal build would cost, with philanthropic dollars covering much of the bill – the city should treat it as exactly what it is: critical public infrastructure worth protecting and expanding.

The City Council and the Mamdani administration will soon make important decisions about where to invest in the children and families of this city. We will talk about youth employment, afterschool programs, foster care, mental health and the universal childcare promise the mayor has made central to his agenda. None of those investments will work as well as they should if the agencies delivering them can still not see each other's work.

The Portal isn't the whole answer. But it's the closest thing this city has built to one. Let's keep building.

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The 2026 Trailblazers in Construction

City & State — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Construction is not just a thriving industry in New York, it’s the key to addressing some of the state’s most pressing issues. It is at the core of every debate over the state’s housing crisis, with advocates calling for ways to increase the number of affordable housing units statewide. New York City area airports continue to be reimagined as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey progresses on plans to make the city’s front door as attractive as possible – from revamping terminals to untangling the maze of roadways servicing John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Port Authority is also embarking on an ambitious new capital plan that will further modernize the downstate transportation network, with a new commuter bus terminal, seaports of the future, improved bridges and tunnels, and upgrades to the PATH system. Commuters will see other upgrades too, as work continues on the Gateway project to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, which will one day lead to a newly redesigned Penn Station. City & State’s Trailblazers in Construction highlights many of the key players in this vital industry.

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Adriano Espaillat, Jordan Wright, join with Black leaders in show of unity to fend off DSA

Rebecca C. Lewis — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:40:00 -0400

A common enemy is a powerful thing. Two uptown incumbents, formerly of rival factions, cross endorsed each other on Saturday in a bid to prevent the Democratic Socialists of America from swiping either of their seats.

Members of New York City’s and Upper Manhattan’s Black political leadership came out to affirm their support of Rep. Adriano Espaillat as he attempts to fend off a challenge from Democratic Socialists of America-backed Darializa Avila Chevalier. And Espaillat endorsed Jordan Wright, the son of his biggest rival, in his bid to keep his Harlem Assembly seat against DSA-backed Conrad Blackburn.

Although Manhattan Democratic boss Keith Wright wasn't in attendance, the press conference at the Edison Ballroom in midtown Manhattan was probably as close to a treaty as they're going to get since Espaillat beat Wright in a hard-fought race for Congress in 2016.

The press conference followed an annual Congressional Black Caucus event, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Gregory Meeks, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, reiterated their – and Black leadership's – support of Espaillat on Saturday. “We got some powerhouses here, y'all,” Jeffries said. “It's how important this election is, it's how important Harlem is.”

“This is a meeting again of families that must come together – and we have come together – and it will be for the best interest of our community,” Espaillat said as he shook the younger Wright’s hand. He noted that he interned for Wright’s grandfather, late Judge Bruce Wright, who swore Espaillat into office for his first term in the Assembly.

Asked about the elder Wright's absence, Espaillat quipped that he is not on the ballot and therefore couldn't receive an endorsement. Pressed further, Jeffries chimed in. “Assemblyman Jordan Wright is here, and that speaks for itself,” Jeffries said. “And by the way, we're going to make sure that this brilliant, hardworking young man, Jordan Wright, facing a DSA challenge, is reelected.”

Espaillat's opponent Avila Chevalier not only has the backing of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, but also recently received the endorsement of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The mayor has also endorsed Assembly Member Claire Valdez and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander for Congress. All his congressional endorsements put him at odds with many Democratic leaders, including Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“The mayor and I have agreed to strongly disagree as it relates to these congressional races, particularly the endorsement that was made against Congressman Adriano Espaillat,” Jeffries said. “We're all standing together because we understand the importance of this race.”

The repeated emphasis on unity between Black leaders and the Latino Espaillat underscored the somewhat extraordinary nature of the press conference of historically feuding factions. “(Espaillat is) in fact the chair of the (Congressional Hispanic Caucus), and we understand that working collectively together, we can make the lives of the citizens better,” Meeks said.

He spoke about his own roots in Harlem, a neighborhood he called “the leader of Black politics.” “That's why I'm glad to see the unity that I see here today bringing us together,” Meeks said.

No one present for the press conference, which also included Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, explicitly disparaged the DSA, even while some spoke of the difference between district natives and those who moved there later in life in a veiled dig at leftist candidates. But as he exited the press conference clearly meant to combat the threat posed by DSA insurgents against more traditional incumbents, Jeffries denied that he viewed the organization as a threat to the future of the Democratic Party. “No,” he said bluntly when asked.

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NYC-DSA chides Mamdani for increasing NYPD headcount

Peter Sterne — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 12:02:00 -0400

The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America made its strongest criticism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani to date on Friday, when it signed on to a statement criticizing the mayor’s plan to increase the New York City Police Department’s headcount.

“(Mamdani’s mayoral) platform also promised to keep the New York City Police Department (NYPD) headcount flat. … Yet he has recently committed to increasing the NYPD headcount by 580 officers – an increase which will require at least $70 million in the city budget. This runs counter to the values of the socialist and working-class movement that elected him,” the statement reads.

In addition to NYC-DSA, the mayor’s political home, the statement was signed by progressive groups Desis Rising Up & Moving, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, New York Communities for Change, VOCAL-NY and Justice Committee. These represent some of Mamdani’s strongest supporters; NYC-DSA, NYCC and DRUM’s sister group DRUM Beats were some of the first organizations to endorse Mamdani’s mayoral campaign back in October 2024.

“We are calling on Mayor Mamdani to reverse this proposed expansion of the NYPD and invest the money in community safety programs instead,” the groups wrote in the statement.

City Hall declined to respond directly to the criticism from NYC-DSA and other groups.

The current headcount of the NYPD is 33,861, according to the Mamdani administration, which recently announced that it would increase the budgeted headcount of the NYPD to 35,370 for Fiscal Year 2027. Although the actual NYPD headcount is unlikely to exceed 35,000 until 2028 at the earliest, this represents a small but significant shift away from his campaign promise to cap the NYPD’s budgeted headcount at 35,000.

During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani also called for the elimination of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group and its gang database. Since taking office, Mamdani has repeatedly said that he still plans to eventually abolish the Strategic Response Group, though he has not actually done so. His position on the gang database has shifted; he has praised the NYPD for implementing reforms to the database and no longer says the NYPD must stop using it. The statement from NYC-DSA, DRUM and other groups calls on Mamdani to follow through on his campaign promise to eliminate the Strategic Response Group and gang database.

It also calls on Mamdani to accelerate the creation of a new Department of Community Safety to deploy civilians and social workers to many of the mental health and homelessness calls typically handled by police. As mayor, Mamdani launched a watered-down Office of Community Safety. Mamdani has said that he hopes to turn the office into a full department by the end of his first term.

Although the statement from NYC-DSA and other groups praises Mamdani’s overall vision for public safety, it still represents a remarkable shift in NYC-DSA’s public rhetoric toward the mayor. NYC-DSA’s leaders are in regular contact with Mamdani, and the socialist organization has carefully avoided criticizing him in public, preferring to communicate any concerns privately.

While individual DSA members and internal DSA caucuses have not shied away from criticizing the mayor, particularly over his policies toward the police, NYC-DSA itself has never signed onto such statements previously – not even at 4 p.m. on a summer Friday.

In November, the internal DSA caucuses Emerge and Marxist Unity Group called on Mamdani to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. But those caucuses have relatively little influence within the leadership of NYC-DSA, which is largely controlled by the more pragmatic and elections-focused Socialist Majority Caucus and Groundwork caucus. On Monday, following Mamdani’s announcement of the NYPD expansion, Emerge released another statement criticizing the mayor and calling him to fire Tisch and abolish the Strategic Response Group and gang database.

The dissent within Mamdani’s base over his relationship with the NYPD comes as the left struggles to articulate its vision for public safety. During the George Floyd protests in 2020, DSA and Mamdani loudly called for defunding the police, with Mamdani calling the NYPD “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” But in the wake of a conservative backlash against the idea of defunding the police, DSA largely stopped talking about it and Mamdani even publicly apologized to NYPD officers for his earlier views.

Recently, many in DSA have argued that support for the NYPD is fundamentally incompatible with socialist politics. Earlier this month, DSA’s National Political Committee approved a revised national platform for the organization, which includes an explicit call to (eventually) abolish the police: “Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect police and prison funding to public services as steps towards abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state.”

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Opinion: That day at departure

Steven Raga — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

In her 1969 memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou captured the weight of unspoken trauma when she wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Losing my father, Andres, when I was 7 years old – to a rare but treatable disease, because we couldn’t pay for his care – is my untold story.

For most of my life, the tragedy has remained a private source of grief. After I entered public service, I confided it sparingly: in a closed-door meeting with healthcare advocates, to a longtime ally in western Queens advocacy or a close Assembly colleague. Even then, because childhood trauma rarely endures as a coherent narrative, I could only offer a scaffolding of memory.

In late 1990, when I was a second grader in Woodside, Dad was diagnosed with amyloidosis, a disease caused by the buildup of an abnormal, organ-ravaging protein. My family could not afford life-extending treatment or palliative care. My father passed away within a few months. He was only 44 years old. His death imprinted a hard truth: In the nation’s wealthiest city, my Dad was gone not because care didn’t exist, but because it wasn’t accessible.

This personal loss forged my worldview about income inequality and healthcare as a human right. It charted my legislative order of battle toward healthcare justice and affordable care pathways for everyday New Yorkers, particularly in fighting tooth and nail for the single-payer New York Health Act (NYHA), the most critical and comprehensive healthcare law in our state’s history.

For 34 years, this was the story I had told myself. This past year, however, as I met a growing number of constituents devastated by H.R. 1, the Trump administration’s unraveling of our systems of care, and as I began to hear them unpack their trauma, the contours of my own began to resurface.

Waylaid by the colossal force of recollection, as the writer Mary Karr said, I began to grasp how incomplete that story was. I began to remember.

January 1991: I am awakened in pre-dawn Woodside by my mother, Adela. It was time to get dressed for the airport. She was hurrying me. It was an early flight at JFK and we didn’t want to mess around with traffic. Dad was already having breakfast, or trying his best to, in his weakened state. We were living with my Aunt, or Tita, my mother’s sister. Tita and I were going with my folks to send them off. My grandfather had passed away that week in the Philippines, and they were going home for the funeral while I stayed with my Aunt until they returned in a couple of weeks.

I recall feeling vaguely unsettled that morning, but that had been my constant emotional state since returning to New York as a 6-year-old that year.

Though I was born in Queens to my immigrant parents in 1984, I’d only lived in the U.S. since 1990. Shortly before my first birthday, my parents decided that Dad and I would live in the Philippines until his permanent residency petition was granted in one to two years. Mom would remain in New York and continue working at her two retail clerk jobs.

Dad and I lived in his boyhood home in Laguna province, south of Manila. He traveled two hours each way to his postal clerk job in Manila while both sets of grandparents cared for me. A few days each month, he would bring me to his sprawling post office in the big city, where I’d trundle after him and chat with his coworkers, my first experience with public servants.

One year bled into the next until the promised one- or two-year family separation had become six. In 1990, when I was turning 7 years old, Dad’s green card was finally approved. We arrived in the U.S. in time for me to enroll in second grade. We’d been made whole as a family for barely half a year when Dad got sick and received his diagnosis. And then came that day of departure.

I’d understood that Dad was ill. Our near-daily jaunts through Woodside on the way to the playground had tapered off as he swiftly deteriorated. But in my child’s cognitive framing, this separation was temporary: His father, my Lolo, had died. He was going with Mom to bury him. They would both soon be back.

It was during the livery car ride that I began to sense that something was amiss. My father was clutching me tightly in his arms. Mom was facing out the window, covering her mouth, trying to mask her tears.

Inside the terminal, I remember my bewilderment as Dad pulled me into a long embrace, sobbing, before walking away with Mom to board the flight. And my Tita is leaning down and whispering, “He’s crying because this is the last time he’ll see you.”

Absent the means to pay for treatment, my father had been given a few months to live. Our family insurance wouldn’t cover the specialized care that might have extended his life. Unwilling to burden the family’s strained finances for his hospice and funeral costs, he was flying to the Philippines to bury his father, before spending his own final days in his childhood home.

These were all revealed to me later, because in the moments after Tita’s whisper, all I remember were rising waves of indignation – that was our last hug?? – along with panic and, finally, desperation, as I tried to scoot under the metal barriers to run after my Dad, Tita restraining me as I screamed at my parents to wait, so I could go with them, and wailing as they receded from view.

He had been my entire world, and now he was swept away in a current of strangers.

My father, Andres H. Raga, passed away at the age of 44 a few weeks later on Feb. 28, 1991. He died in his childhood bedroom, with Mom by his side, and was buried in his hometown next to my Lolo.

I am recounting this personal narrative – and the chimerical path I took to reclaiming it fully – to honor my Dad and pay tribute to my Mom, Adela Cabildo Raga. She raised me as a single mother and we struggled financially for years, getting evicted several times from various apartments in Queens. Eventually, through her membership in the Teamsters and sheer force of will, she brought us to a place of economic stability. She passed away in 2019, at age 70, three years before I was elected to the Assembly, as the first Filipino American to hold statewide office and the first person of color to represent the district.

As the H.R. 1 emergency enters one of its direst phases, with half a million New Yorkers soon to lose their health insurance from President Donald Trump’s cuts to the state’s Essential Plan – I am impelled to share it as an account of what a health care catastrophe looks like, from the perspective of one family and its most vulnerable member, a young child.

I am bearing witness, in the foundational belief that no young New Yorker should ever have to endure a moment like the one I experienced on that day at departure.

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Here’s what the City Council is pushing for in the NYC budget

Sahalie Donaldson and Fariha Rahman — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 17:04:42 -0400

With multiple rounds of budget hearings coming to a close this week, the two sides of City Hall have until June 30 to agree on a spending plan for the coming fiscal year. It’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin’s first time leading budget negotiations, a process that usually culminates with a ceremonial handshake between the mayor and speaker.

Compared to former Mayor Eric Adams and former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who were simultaneously running against each other for mayor while hashing out their final budget, Mamdani and Menin aren’t at each other’s throats. Nor, unlike several budget cycles under their predecessors, have negotiations divulged into an all out war over across-the-board funding cuts.

But things haven’t been all copacetic. Mamdani and Menin have clashed over how to close the city’s multibillion dollar budget gap. Mamdani’s “last resort” threat to hike property taxes, differing projections on where savings could be found and Menin’s refusal to call on the governor to tax the rich were all issues that caused tensions to flare.

Thanks in large part to a major bailout from the state that helped close the city’s budget gap, the biggest hurdle is now behind both leaders. Mamdani’s executive budget proposal clocked in at $124.7 billion, balanced without cutting into reserves, increasing property taxes or slashing service delivery. Sticking points remain as the City Council pushes for additional funding for a raft of agencies and programs. Some of these requests are highly costly, last minute, and come as lingering budget pressures loom over proceedings, complicating what the Mamdani administration can and can’t allocate. A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Here are some of the things to keep an eye on over the next couple of weeks.

CityFHEPS

One of the biggest lingering questions tied to budget negotiations is whether the Mamdani administration will comply with the expansion of an expensive rental voucher program known as CityFHEPS. This issue goes back to 2023, when the City Council passed a package of laws expanding eligibility for who can receive the vouchers. The Adams administration refused to implement the law due to the high costs, spurring the Legal Aid Society to sue with the City Council. While Mamdani pledged to put the laws into effect as a candidate, he pivoted after taking office as the city grappled with the multibillion budget gap. In March, he appealed a ruling in the City Council’s favor that would force the city to fund the program. The program is expected to cost roughly $1.8 billion this fiscal year. Projected estimates for an expansion range somewhat, though all rapidly exceed current spending.

While the City Council didn’t include the CityFHEPS expansion in its official budget response, Menin and other members have continued to signal that it’s a priority.

Christine Quinn, president and CEO of shelter services nonprofit WIN, said that she’s feeling increasingly confident that the Mamdani administration will come to an agreement to fund the expansion before the budget is finalized. “They’re at the table in good faith. They want to get this done and they want to make sure that they can withdraw the appeal,” she said. “If you’d asked me three months ago, I was not particularly optimistic that there would be a settlement, but I’m much more optimistic now.”

City Council Member Pierina Sanchez, who chairs the council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings and helped lead the expansion, was less confident. At this point, she’s not heard “anything concrete” in terms of committed funding for a CityFHEPS expansion in this budget. Negotiations are ongoing. “If there is not a significant expansion of CityFHEPS – and I mean significant in terms of meeting the entire spirit of the 2023 laws – I’m going to have a really hard time with that budget,” Sanchez said, suggesting that and other council members could vote against the spending plan if that’s the case.

Fair Fares

The City Council is seeking an additional $130 million to $135 million in funding to expand a program known as Fair Fares – a request that would more than double the current $96 million budget. This would ensure program participants receive free MTA subway and bus fare, rather than 50% discounts. . Roughly 360,000 New Yorkers are currently enrolled in the program for qualifying residents who make a maximum income under $24,000. Since this program was enacted during the de Blasio administration, city legislators have consistently been trying to increase access for New Yorkers who cannot afford to pay the fare.

Fair Fares is funded by the city budget rather than the MTA or the state. The Mamdani administration’s campaign promise for fast and free buses came under further scrutiny earlier this week when the Independent Budget Office reported several projection models that determined expanding the Fair Fares program would ultimately be cheaper than enacting fast and free buses. Unlike expanding Fair Fares, the latter is a decision that lies with the state. The mayor has expressed his support for Fair Fares and the expansion plans but did not include it in his budget proposal.

Department of Consumer and Worker Protection funding

The City Council is seeking an additional $32 million to fund the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection along with the hiring of an additional 271 positions over the next three years. With the mayor’s support, that would bring funding for the agency to roughly $110.4 million – a fairly significant bump from the $78.4 million currently included in the Mamdani administration’s executive budget proposal. Menin, who used to lead the agency under the de Blasio administration, and other council members are justifying the request by pointing to the expanding raft of enforcement and licensing responsibilities that falls under its purview. That includes new legal protections for delivery workers and delivery drivers, additional protections and licenses for street vendors and the Safe Hotels Act.

While Mamdani pledged to double funding for the agency on the campaign trail, he’s argued that his proposal distributes sufficient resources at this point – and he’s vowed to further raise funding to $96.6 million by fiscal year 2030.

Expanding NYC Rise

The City Council is also pushing the Mamdani administration to significantly expand an existing program called NYC Rise that creates college savings accounts for public school students and many charter school students. The city currently creates an account for kindergartners automatically, setting them up with an initial deposit of $100. For students from low-income families, this early contribution could grow to $3,000 under the City Council’s proposal. Other students would receive an initial deposit of $1,000. The college savings program is of particular importance to Menin who helped establish it roughly a decade ago while leading the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs.

Altogether, the proposed expansion would cost about $180 million annually – a big bump from the current $12.7 million, albeit a fraction of the overarching $125 billion budget. The mayor has signaled that he’s receptive to the possibility, but not made any commitments at this point, according to The New York Times.

Parks funding

The City Council wants to add roughly $40 million to the parks department’s budget – approximately half of which would add an additional 200 positions to the enforcement unit overseeing quality-of-life issues across the city’s green spaces. This would be a significant reversal in fortune for the Parks Enforcement Patrol, which currently employs around 350 officers, after the mayor’s executive budget plan proposed slashing 100 positions. Critics have charged that such a cut would create a major public safety risk.

Fifth firefighter

The City Council is fighting for an additional $91.7 million to bring back a fifth firefighter position at nearly 100 of the city’s busiest Fire Department engine companies. That would be a major expansion from the current 20 companies that already have this, but mounting public safety concerns have helped propel the issue into the spotlight. Fire Department ambulance response times have steadily increased in recent years, spurred at least in part by heavy traffic and higher 911 call volumes.

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NY lobbyists raked in a record $384.8 million last year

Chantal Mann — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:10:39 -0400

A record $384.8 million was spent trying to influence state and city governments last year, according to the 2025 annual report by the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government released last week, the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking spending. To no one’s surprise, gaming was a lucrative issue, with the companies representing the downstate casino proposals for Resorts World and Metropolitan Park both landing in the top three biggest spenders. But the year’s top spender is the Partnership for New York City’s revived Coalition for New York’s Future, which shelled out $3.6 million.

The state’s top lobbyist was again Brown & Weinraub Advisors, which was paid $24.3 million last year. Kasirer moved ahead of Bolton-St. Johns, coming in second with $17.4 million.

Read on for the companies and organizations spent the most on lobbying in 2025.

1. Coalition for New York’s Future

Relaunched in September 2024 by the Partnership for New York City, the big business advocacy group, Coalition for New York’s Future was the year’s biggest spender at $3.6 million. They lobbied hard for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project to expand the natural gas pipeline into the New York City metro area. The organization’s biggest cost was more than $1 million to marketing technology company Project Applecart LLC for design services and social media advertising.

The coalition also pushed advertising encouraging a “yes” vote for New York City’s four housing-related ballot initiatives. And while the Partnership changed leadership this year, as Steven Fulop replaced Kathy Wylde as CEO, it hasn’t slowed down on trying to influence the city and state governments. So far this year, they’ve spent $800,000 on ads pushing Gov. Kathy Hochul to drop plans to tax the rich and asking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to veto a controversial buffer zone bill.

2. Genting New York

The company approved to proceed with the expansion of Resorts World in Queens spent $3.5 million on contracts with seven companies, including the $1.1 million they spent lobbying for the plan in New York City. Their efforts paid off, as the Queens casino officially began live table games in April.

3. Queens Future

Mets owner Steve Cohen spent 2025 trying to convince everyone in government to let him build a casino next to Citi Field, with the LLC he formed for the bid shelling out $3.2 million lobbying for the endeavor. Queens Future spent $1.4 million in New York City last year, hiring 14 different lobbying firms including Tusk Strategies and the MirRam Group. The New York State Gaming commission approved their casino license in December, and the $8 billion project is already running over five months behind schedule. To make matters worse for Cohen, the Mets can’t stop losing.

4. Greater New York Hospital Association

The healthcare trade association lobbied on behalf of 280 hospitals and health systems in the tristate area – including NYU Langone, Mount Sinai Health System and NewYork-Presbyterian – spending $3.1 million and retaining contracts with Bolton-St. Johns, Tonio Burgos & Associates, Empire Strategic Planning and the MirRam Group. GNYHA also partnered with Assemble for multiplatform media buys and mailers, as they looked to influence lawmakers regarding a wide array of hot-topic health issues, including navigating conflicting state and federal guidance regarding gender-affirming care and Medicaid cuts.

5. American Beverage Association

The powerhouse representing nonalcoholic beverage companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo spent $3 million in 2025 and retained contracts with the Ickes & Enright Group, Brown & Weinraub Advisors and Breezeway Consulting. They focused on stopping several pieces of waste reduction legislation, most of which did not move forward this year after the state budget passed nearly two months late.

6. Hotel Trades Council, AFL-CIO and Hotel Association of New York City, Labor Management Cooperation Trust Fund

This entity, made up of the hotel and gaming workers union and the hotel industry’s professional trade association, retained a contract with Connective Strategies Associates and spent $2.6 million in 2025. They pushed back against Airbnb’s efforts to loosen Local Law 18 restrictions, lobbying lawmakers to oppose bills that would amend requirements to the short-term rental law.

7. United University Professions

UUP, the higher education union representing SUNY educators across the state, spent $2.3 million and retained a contract with Hinman Straub Advisors. They advocated for additional funding to the SUNY system, including $1 billion in capital funding for SUNY Downstate University Hospital and a call to stop budget cuts to SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. They also lobbied throughout the year to support the union’s contract negotiations with the state.

8. Homeowners For Financial Empowerment

Backed by Airbnb, Homeowners for Financial Empowerment paid $2.3 million to Manhattan Strategies for social media advertising, printing and consulting services. The group is most concerned with Local Law 18, New York City’s short-term rental policy they describe as the most restrictive in the world. Much of their spending documented in the COELIG report was on advertising. They lobbied on the city level for Intro. 948, which would have amended the law to increase lodger limits and allow owners to host without being present and lock doors to private rooms, but did not move forward in the City Council.

9. Instacart

Instacart spent $2 million and worked with CMW Strategies, Albany Strategic Advisors and Tusk Strategies. The delivery app lobbied state and city lawmakers regarding legislation around additional delivery fees, algorithmic pricing bans and minimum pay rate requirements for delivery app workers. Instacart sued New York City in December over several laws impacting delivery driver pay, including a $22.13 minimum wage for drivers.

10. Maddd Equities

Of the $1.8 million the real estate developer spent in 2025, Maddd spent $1.4 million on their contract with the law firm Akerman, which acts as their land use counsel. Focus went toward lobbying on municipal land use matters for projects that Maddd has pushed through the City Council – including redevelopments of the Kingsbridge Armory and the Bronx General Post Office – and permits and licensing for the e-bike startup JOCO as part of a collaboration to install the company’s docking stations at upcoming properties.

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This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

City & State — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Remember the last time we saw Eric Adams at the Garden? The Knicks won that night, but Adams’ watch buddy Andrew Cuomo fell short. Some might have wondered if Adams would carry over his friend President Donald Trump’s jinx to Game 4, but not so. The Knicks had the biggest NBA Finals comeback win in history, fighting back from a 29-point deficit, sparking pure pandemonium and euphoria throughout the city. And Adams was there! Coincidence? He’d say not. For now, we’d just ask that the current mayor build an OG Anunoby statue (and it looks like Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal has the right idea).

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Eric Wollman wins City & State’s 2026 state budget poll

Peter Sterne — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

More than 200 people entered City & State’s 2026 state budget poll, but only one came close to guessing the date that the budget finally passed.

Eric Wollman, a former staffer in the New York City comptroller’s office, predicted that the budget would be passed at 1 a.m. on May 26. In the end, the final budget bills passed on the night of May 27 – just one day later, and nearly two months after the April 1 deadline.

How did Wollman come so close? “Well, May 26 is my birthday, so that was an easy one to just pick a date, and I knew it would be fairly late,” Wollman told City & State.

It might not take decades of experience with municipal finance to predict that the state budget would be late yet again, but it doesn’t hurt either. Wollman spent 46 years working for the New York City comptroller’s office, beginning under Harrison Goldin in the 1970s and ending under Scott Stringer. He’s now a special assistant to the chair of the Organization of Staff Analysts, a union representing municipal employees.

Wollman said he followed this year’s budget negotiations closely, though not “microscopically,” and was particularly surprised by the changes to Tier 6 pension reforms that changed the mandatory retirement age for cops. “I’m very pro-union,” he said. “Anything is good for working people and unionists, I support.”

Wollman visited the City & State newsroom this week to collect his prize: a custom City & State New York blanket. He was delighted to receive recognition from City & State, which he’s been reading ever since it launched 20 years ago as the City Hall newspaper.

“I’m a loyal subscriber,” he said. “I was a subscriber at one time – I think, as a city employee, I was comped – but I think it’s a must-read paper, actually.”

“I always am cutting and pasting things that are written (on the site) and commiserating with my former fellow colleagues and political people, so it’s entertaining,” he added. “It’s my version of the sports section.”

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Opinion: New York must set the standard for responsible data center development

Kristen Gonzalez — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The explosive growth of artificial intelligence is fueling an unprecedented rush to build data centers across the country. As developers increasingly target New York for new projects, we face an urgent question: Will we establish the rules needed to manage this industry's growth before its impacts outpace our ability to respond?

If data centers are going to become a major part of New York's economy, they must operate under rules that protect New Yorkers from higher utility bills, encourage efficient energy use and ensure the regions hosting data centers don't absorb the burdens. Last week, the state Legislature took action by passing my bill, the Responsible Data Centers Act, which includes a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data center permits. Gov. Kathy Hochul should now sign it into law, giving the state time to assess the industry's impacts on our grid, water resources, climate goals and local communities before unchecked expansion continues.

Proposals for large-scale data centers have piled up across New York, each one bringing enormous new demands on our energy grid, water supplies and ratepayers. These facilities don’t just use massive amounts of power – they often reshape entire grids, requiring new transmission infrastructure, new power generation and other costly upgrades. As the Regional Plan Association has warned, energy demand for data centers could outpace what current grid infrastructure in New York is prepared to handle.

Data centers also produce relatively few long-term jobs. In Orangeburg, one data center project received roughly $77 million in tax breaks but created only one permanent job in return. At a time when New Yorkers are being asked to absorb higher costs, these projects raise serious questions about who truly benefits from their expansion.

Already, this surge in energy demand is being used to justify energy projects that do not serve everyday New Yorkers, like the groundbreaking of the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline and other costly buildouts designed to meet corporate demand rather than public need. This trajectory risks committing New York to decades of reliance on fossil fuels.

Without guardrails, the fallout from data center growth is predictable because we have seen it materialize in other communities. Ratepayers face higher utility bills, industry creates more pressure for fossil fuel buildout, drinking water supplies face massive drawdowns and there is 24/7 noise pollution from cooling systems or on-site energy generation. What’s often marketed as “economic development” risks becoming a long-term liability for the communities these projects claim to benefit.

All of this is happening as New York backs away from its landmark climate law, delaying implementation and weakening key provisions at a time when decisive action is needed most. Meanwhile, the state continues permitting facilities like Greenidge Generation – a major crypto company now pivoting to power AI – despite growing concerns about the facility’s energy and climate impacts. Greenidge already operates a 106-megawatt natural gas-powered plant for cryptomining and has applied to draw an additional 260 megawatts from the grid.

We’re already feeling the consequences. In the Finger Lakes, TeraWulf is advancing a large data center project near Cayuga Lake, which has drawn fierce local opposition. When local officials attempted to slow the project down, TeraWulf responded by threatening legal action against the town board – an aggressive tactic that underscores how quickly these fights can escalate and how much pressure communities are forced to endure.

These cases make one thing clear: local communities should not have to shoulder the responsibility of fighting billion-dollar companies, especially with such little support. That’s why groups like the National Coalition Against Cryptomining have emerged to support communities and push for stronger oversight of this rapidly expanding industry. Hochul must step in, set clear expectations and shield New Yorkers before these conflicts spiral further out of control.

If data centers are going to be part of New York's future, their growth must align with our climate goals, protect ratepayers and deliver real benefits to the communities that host them. By signing a moratorium into law, the governor will give New York the time it needs to develop meaningful safeguards before this industry expands beyond our limits.

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‘A betrayal:’ nonprofit leaders angered by potential of delayed Mamdani admin payments

Fariha Rahman — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:55:21 -0400

New York City owes nonprofit organization The Children’s Village $3.7 million – and its leader is worried that the longstanding problem of delayed contracting payments is about to get even worse.

“After almost 10 to 12 years of advocacy and commitments, that’s a betrayal,” said Children’s Village President and CEO Jeremy Kohomban introducing a panel Thursday for NYN Media Nonprofit OpCon.

The night before hundreds of nonprofit professionals gathered for the convention at Hebrew Union College in Manhattan, NBC New York reported that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is considering delaying payments to nonprofit organizations due to “cash flow issues,” according to sources inside the administration.

That’s downstream of an October 2025 law requiring the city to pay social service nonprofits 50% of their annual contract award upfront, at the start of the new fiscal year, up from the 25% they currently receive. Nonprofit organizations that typically serve the city’s most vulnerable populations may be receiving just half of their expected city funding in less than three weeks’ time and are scrambling to find a solution.

Even larger organizations with strong donor support are suffering due to years of missed payments from the city. Many nonprofits have had to relay on taking out lines of credit while waiting for the city to pay for services already rendered.

Kohomban said his organization spent nearly $860,000 on their credit line last year, most of it directly related to delayed payments from the city. He added that the only agency to pay their contracts on time has been the Administration for Children’s Services.

Jeremy Kohomban of Children’s Village moderated the first panel. (Rita Thompson)

Mamdani administration spokesperson Dora Pekec confirmed that the city was reviewing how to implement the law, given the city’s cash-on-hand, and while she said “all nonprofits will be fully paid for their rendered services” – the expected advance payments may be delayed beyond July 1.

“We will work with our partners in government and the nonprofit sector to meaningfully implement this new law while continuing to manage the city’s cash flow.” Pekec added.

This delay of payment would be allowed for up to 180 days due to an exception in the new law that allows deferment if that timeline for payment is not practical due to fiscal constraints. Kohomban said the delay would especially hurt smaller nonprofit organizations with less donor support, who still have to fulfill their obligations to the city.

“It's an absolute betrayal,” Kohomban said. “I trust the mayor and I took him at his word that he would do right by those of us who fight the toughest battles. We are doing the work of a good government. Everything he stands for is the battle that I fight on behalf of New Yorkers.”

Nonprofit organizers are extremely displeased with the lack of response or confirmation from City Hall, and there are rumblings of a rally to be held in the coming days.

The initial proposal for advance payments for nonprofit organizations was born during the de Blasio administration. Advocates pushed to receive payment ahead of time after years of debt accruing from the city, and the New York City Council and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration adopted a 25% payment advance in April 2025..

The city is not alone in their troubles with paying nonprofits on time. The state legislature just passed a pair of bills to fix the broken payment system and begin a 25% budget advance and a mandated 30-day net payment.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s deputy director of Nonprofit Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

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Enacted state budget roughly $9 billion more than initially announced

Rebecca C. Lewis — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:51:25 -0400

The state released the enacted budget financial plan that placed the total price tag at over $277 billion – about $9 billion higher than the $268 billion total Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in mid-May.

According to the financial plan, which the state put out Wednesday afternoon, the difference came “almost entirely due to a $10 billion upward adjustments to estimated Federal spending.” In other words, the total budget has grown, but that’s thanks to additional federal dollars – not more state spending. In fact, the document said officials made a revision to state operations and capital projects spending that reduced its total by about $1 billion compared to when the governor made her budget deal announcement. Hence, $9 billion higher since May.

Most of the additional federal money comes from the state tapping a trust fund to shoulder the costs of the Essential Plan, according to a Division of the Budget spokesperson. In March, the state received a waiver from the federal government to revert the Essential Plan back to a Basic Health Program in order to access that multibillion dollar trust fund and keep over 1 million New Yorkers from losing healthcare.

Smaller portions of the upward cost estimate come from past federal emergency relief dollars and distressed hospital funding owed to the state that must be reflected in this year’s enacted budget.

The financial plan also provides an update on the state’s outyear budget gaps, adjusting those estimates upwards by a cumulative $3.8 billion over the next three years compared to the governor’s executive budget proposal. Fiscal year 2028 will have an estimated $6.4 billion hole, up from $6.1 billion projected in the executive budget; fiscal year 2029’s gap increased from $9 billion to $10.5 billion; and fiscal year 2030 now has a predicted $14.7 billion budget deficit, up from $12.8 billion in January.

The plan places the blame for the increased budget hole projections on new recurring spending negotiated between the governor and the state Legislature that got added into the enacted budget. According to the financial plan, much of that is attributable to increases to school aid, enhanced pension benefits like the Tier VI reforms and additional support for SUNY and CUNY.

Fiscal watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission praised the more timely release of the enacted budget financial plan compared to past years, but still criticized the flat rainy day fund and increased outyear budget gaps. “The structural gap is now nearly $18.0 billion,” CBC President Andrew Rein said in a statement. “That’s a real fiscal risk to the State – and vulnerable New Yorkers who rely on its services – because it could drive serious service cuts in the future even without a recession.”

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It was a pretty good year for regulating AI in New York

Rebecca C. Lewis — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:03:06 -0400

State lawmakers didn’t slow down on their attempts to create artificial intelligence safeguards this year as they approved a series of new measures to reign in misuse in the fast-growing and frequently evolving industry. Although none were quite as high-profile as the RAISE Act approved last year, legislators passed a fairly wide range of AI-related bills at the end of the legislative session earlier this month.

Two notable bills that made it through both chambers directly relate to how minors interact with AI chatbots. One far-reaching piece of legislation from state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez and Assembly Member Alex Bores would enact new regulations on AI chatbot features used by kids that could be harmful or dangerous. If signed into law, the measure would, for example, prohibit chatbot interactions with minors from simulating emotion to establish false companionship, engage in unsupervised therapy and promote self harm, among other things.

“For too long, tech companies have been allowed to deploy increasingly powerful systems without meaningful protections, and we’ve seen it through dozens of tragic, chatbot-related cases around the country,” Gonzalez said in a statement, referring to instances of teen suicide that could be traced back to troubling conversations with AI.

Groups like Common Sense Media have been pushing for protections in AI technology in New York and across the nation. “This is a huge victory for kids and families and a model for other states to follow,” James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, said in a statement. “We encourage Gov. Kathy Hochul, one of the strongest governors in the nation for kids’ online safety, to sign this bill into law.”

The other bill, sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assembly Member Rebecca Kassay, would place a five-year moratorium on the sale of children’s toys that incorporate chatbots, which Gournades likened to something out of The Twilight Zone. “It’s logical, it’s fair, and most importantly, it makes clear that our children’s safety is nothing for Big Tech to play around with,” Gounardes said in a statement about his bill’s passage.

Also from Gounardes and Bores, the Artificial Intelligence Training Data Transparency Act passed both chambers. The measure would enact transparency requirements for the data used to train large language and generative artificial intelligence models. The bill was one of several targeted by tech industry lobbying last year, along with the RAISE Act.

In a different vein, state Sen. Pat Fahy’s and Assembly Member Nily Rozic’s Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Requirements in News Act made it through the state Legislature. Dubbed the FAIR News Act, the nation-leading bill would require news organizations to disclose the use of generative AI in its reporting and writing. It would also enact protections for human newsroom staff against AI automation.

“Perhaps one of the industries at most risk from the use of artificial intelligence is journalism, and as a result, the public’s trust and confidence in accurate news reporting,” Fahy said in a statement. “AI is reshaping our economy at a pace faster than the Industrial Revolution.”

Still, plenty more was still left on the table for future years. Gonzalez, who held a hearing at the start of the year to gather feedback on AI regulation best practices, had hoped to get her New York AI Act passed, for one. It would have put into place certain ethical and transparency guidelines for companies developing artificial intelligence.

An executive budget proposal that would have required clear labeling for all AI-generated content and fully banned deceptive political AI content also didn't make the final cut. That’s good news for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, who has made heavy use of AI so far in his campaign messaging in a way that may already have violated existing state law.

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The City Council’s trying again to ban horse carriages

Chantal Mann — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:59:15 -0400

Will 2026 finally be the year of the horse?

New York City Council members joined animal welfare advocates from NYCLASS and PETA today to rally on the steps of City Hall to advocate – yet again – for the passage of Ryder’s Law, which would effectively ban horse-drawn carriages. This time, Council Member Christopher Marte is the bill’s prime sponsor and plans to reintroduce it at the council’s stated meeting Thursday. The rally was charged with renewed anger after a carriage horse collapsed and died Tuesday in Central Park.

The new version of Ryder’s Law – named after a carriage horse who collapsed in Hell’s Kitchen in 2022 and was later euthanized – updates the version sponsored by then-Council Member Bob Holden, which was defeated in committee last year despite support from former mayor Eric Adams. The initiative to phase out the city’s horse-drawn carriage industry is a recurring theme in city government, with Bill de Blasio also supporting a ban during his 2013 mayoral campaign, then failing to advance it over his eight years as mayor. The issue was a hot topic during the most recent mayoral election, too, with all three leading candidates voicing their support for a horse-drawn carriage ban.

During the spring primary, Zohran Mamdani responded to a NYCLASS questionnaire saying that he would support legislation and efforts to shut down the horse-drawn carriage industry. But the mayor also has a good relationship with the Transport Workers Union, which represents carriage horse operators and has opposed the effort.

“As I’ve said, I support removing horse carriages from Central Park. I've also said that I look forward to working with union partners and community leaders to actually deliver on that,” Mamdani told reporters at an unrelated press conference Wednesday morning. “I think in Central Park, what we've seen is a lot of concern about the welfare of these horses, and I want to figure out a way for us to actually get to the end of that.”

TWU didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but TWU Local 100 Vice President Alexander Kemp told amNewYork it was “telling” that Marte has not detailed any plans providing economic support for carriage drivers and owners that will lose their jobs should the bill pass.

“We strongly disagree with Councilman Marte’s premise that carriage horses are mistreated and need to be banned and evicted from their homes,” Kemp said.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin has been less forthright about whether she supports the legislation, even though she co-created the Animal Welfare Caucus in March.

“The death of a carriage horse in Central Park is always troubling, and we understand this is a difficult and emotional issue for many New Yorkers,” a spokesperson for Menin told City & State. “Multiple bills about this issue will be introduced this week and will go through the legislative process to allow for input from all stakeholders.”

The Central Park Conservancy released a statement Wednesday following the dying in Central Park, citing seven horse-related incidents in the park in the last 13 months and called on lawmakers to pass Ryder’s Law.

Council Members Carl Wilson, Harvey Epstein and Frank Morano joined Marte at the rally, as three of the 10 co-prime sponsors for the bill, citing a 2025 poll that found 78% of city voters support a horse-drawn carriage ban.

“This is about where our morals lie as a city,” Marte said. “Let's make sure that we're not waiting another month, another year, another decade to end this practice that should have ended a long time ago.”

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Hochul, Homan and Trump in three-person standoff over immigration

Rebecca C. Lewis — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:02:48 -0400

Gov. Kathy Hochul appears to have put President Donald Trump in a tricky spot as his border czar Tom Homan promises increased immigration enforcement in New York – even though the president himself has previously assured the governor he would take no action unless she asked.

Meanwhile, as Homan publicly gears up to flood the state with additional federal immigration agents, a new law he cited as necessitating the increased presence doesn’t actually take effect for another three months.

While legislators and Hochul negotiated increased immigration protections earlier this year, Homan promised he would flood New York with additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should the measures be approved. Now that Hochul has indeed signed into law a slew of measures as part of the state budget, he is doubling down, telling Fox & Friends on Monday he would send “more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen in New York City.” “We’re going to send more ICE agents to New York because you took away the efficiencies of safe arrests in county jails,” he said, adding, “I keep my promises.”

Except Hochul is counting on Trump to keep his promise, too, and has . repeatedly pointed to the president’s assurance he would not send additional ICE agents to New York unless she asked. (After meeting with Homan in March, she said “that request will never occur.”)

Asked whether she trusts the president to keep his word, Hochul told reporters Monday that she would remind Trump of his promise – but only before pivoting into a veiled threat of the potential consequences of breaking it. “If they come here and go throughout New York state with a surge in ICE, there won’t be Republicans standing in this state,” Hochul said. “This will be weaponized against them. That’s not why they would not do it, but they should just look at the political calculation.”

Homan elaborated on Tuesday while speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., that he was suggesting that the law’s new prohibition of 287(g) agreements between ICE and local law enforcement would warrant more manpower from ICE. Those agreements can range from formalizing information-sharing to using municipal jail space for immigration enforcement purposes to deputizing local police to enforce civil immigration law. “It’s math. … Now we’ve got to send more agents to do the job it would have took one person,” Homan said.

The border czar has refused to say when the operation in New York will begin aside from “it’s coming,” but the section of the law Homan is most concerned about doesn’t take effect immediately. Although localities cannot enter new agreements now that the budget is signed, already signed agreements remain valid for two-and-a-half more months. Per bill language, the particular statute voiding existing 287(g) agreements goes into effect 90 days after Hochul signs the measure, which she did on May 27.

“These are common sense measures to make sure that law enforcement will continue to work with federal law enforcement to ferret out criminals, and for anyone to say otherwise is not telling the truth,” Hochul told reporters in Syracuse Tuesday following Homan’s most recent comments. She said she was “proud” to have signed the new immigration protections, but again reiterated that nothing in the law prevents cooperation to apprehend criminals. “We are very focused on helping communities be safe and local law enforcement should be working with ICE to help remove criminals,” Hochul said. “Full stop.”

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Maurice Brown thinks Syracuse is ready for democratic socialism

Chantal Mann — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Maurice “Mo” Brown did not dream of a career in politics – instead, the 34-year-old spent most of his life chasing a career as a stand-up comedian as he performed sets poking fun at his time in the Army Reserve, applying to work at Taco Bell and his job in construction.

That changed in 2015, though, when Brown volunteered for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign after being inspired by his messaging on income inequality. He hosted rallies and town halls for the campaign, and then worked with the Working Families Party in Syracuse before serving as a member of New York Progressive Action Network’s board of directors for nine years. In January 2024, he was elected to serve as the county legislator for the 15th district of Onondaga County, encompassing much of the southern side of Syracuse. Now, Brown is posing a primary challenge against incumbent Bill Magnarelli for Assembly District 129 – with Sanders and the DSA endorsing his run.

Since entering politics, Brown says life isn’t as funny anymore. Admittedly, there’s not much comedic material to extract from lead levels in drinking water and the potential environmental impacts of the Micron project. But there are plenty of similarities between stand-up and politics.

“In some situations, they're the same,” Brown told City & State. “As a stand-up comedian, you look at life and you try and find the humor in it. Whereas an elected official, you look at life and you try and find how to make it better.”

City & State spoke with Brown last week about why he chose to challenge Magnarelli, their upcoming debate and his support for increased statewide taxes on the rich. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What key issues in your district pushed you to pursue elected office in the Assembly, as opposed to remaining in your current role as county legislator?

A lot of the work you do at the county level is paid for at the state level. The one that came to a head last July was childcare, where we had to stop taking childcare (assistance funding applications) because of the state. Fundamentally, I think we should have universal childcare, so that was the biggest issue that pushed me into the race. Another one that you really can’t pursue on the county level is the data center moratorium, and up until yesterday my opponent was unsure on the data center moratorium, which is such a big issue statewide. (Editor’s note: Magnarelli is a co-sponsor of the latest data center moratorium legislation, which was introduced June 1.) I live in Central New York – Skaneateles Lake and the Finger Lakes define our region. If we don’t pass a moratorium and if we build any data centers the way they’ve been building them right now, it would be an existential threat to the city of Syracuse, and I think it’s so important that I ran for state Assembly on those two things.

Your primary race is one of several throughout the state that sees an establishment incumbent being challenged by a progressive. Within this larger trend that we’re seeing throughout the state, why did you specifically decide to primary Magnarelli?

Initially, when I was considering getting into the race in November, the thought was that Magnarelli was going to retire. He hadn’t said anything, but there were rumors that he and a good amount of the older Assembly members were thinking about retiring. It was more just exploring an Assembly run, but once he decided he was in the race the reasons I would run remained the same. He’s not in favor of good cause eviction. He wasn’t in favor of a data (center) moratorium until yesterday. It wasn’t necessarily that I was running against him – I just want an Assembly member that is willing to fight for the things that I see as important. He hasn’t been that person, and I don't think he’s going to be after 28 years.

Magnarelli has gone unchallenged for much of his 28-year tenure in the Assembly. What has been particularly challenging about trying to upend nearly three decades of a status quo of leadership in the district?

Entrenched power yields nothing without a demand. That’s just life. The powers that be have definitely formed against our campaign, and we thought they would, but I view what we’ve already done as a win. He’s been a notoriously unresponsive Assembly member, and now he’s picking up calls that he’s never done before, like on the data center moratorium. He’s been absent on that, he’s been absent on the community grid conversation. We’re tearing down a big highway in the city of Syracuse that once divided us, and he was not in favor of the teardown. Since he didn’t get his way, he hasn’t been helping the project at all, and I’m told now he is engaging in those conversations. If he had been doing these things all along, I could have happily just bowed out, but it seems like he needs that pressure in order to do his job – so it’s my job to provide that pressure.

You two will debate two times this week. How do you intend to differentiate yourself from him policy-wise as you present yourself to voters?

The biggest difference between us is our tactics: he likes to play the background. I think that you need to be the leader in certain conversations. He’s been in favor of the New York Health Act; I’m going to be a leader on the New York Health Act. He’s not really a leader, he’s more of a gatekeeper. Right now we need people who are going to vocally oppose what ICE is doing, who are going to stand up and fight. People want fighters right now. I think he’s had good service and maybe he can still fight in the ways I think he needs to, but he hasn’t been a fighter for the first 28 years so I’m not expecting him to become one now.

A big part of your campaign has centered on housing affordability and transit, and your support for taxing the rich to get those funds is a major difference between you and Magnarelli.

With all of the things we say we support, you really can’t do them unless you’re going to tax the rich unless you’re in favor of cutting something else. Previously it was Assembly Member Demond Meeks’ bill that was going to pretty much change the tax bracket for those who make above $500,000 a year. If you’re making $500,000 in a year, you can afford to give a little more. We’re calling on those people to step up right now, and we’re seeing in places they have been asked that they’re not leaving the state – the second homes tax was implemented in New York City, and we’ve not seen this mass exodus. It takes courage to stand up to these really powerful, really wealthy people, and I’ve not seen my Assembly member display that courage, and right now we need that.

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After 28 years, Assembly Member Bill Magnarelli says he's still the man for the job

Chantal Mann — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Bill Magnarelli is in something of a love affair with the city of Syracuse. When asked what motivates him to continue to serve Assembly District 129 after 28 years, he had to pause to stop himself from getting choked up.

The moment also gave him an opportunity to differentiate himself from Maurice Brown, the DSA-backed Onondaga County legislator mounting a primary challenge against him. Magnarelli was born in Syracuse and lived there his whole life – unlike his opponent, he pointed out.

“I have memories in every part of Syracuse and Onondaga County,” Magnarelli told City & State. “The way I feel about this community and its people is very hard to describe. I believe that if I thought I could not do the job for them, I would not be running. I feel very strongly that I'm continuing to do a good job.”

He’s not the only one who thinks so: a DoorDash-funded political group has committed over $150,000 on mail, print and digital ads in support of Magnarelli leading up to the June 23 election. The two candidates will participate in their first of two debates with Syracuse.com on Friday.

City & State spoke with Magnarelli last week about his legislative record, how his district has changed over his tenure and the latest data center moratorium legislation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When you speak to voters who haven’t kept up with your work in Albany, what would you point out to them as significant wins you’ve had?

I point to the things I’ve always pointed to from day one and things that I know my constituents need and call me about the most: healthcare, housing, education, infrastructure. Those are the things that I’ve worked very hard to help my community with over the past 28 years. Specifically, I think the school district in Syracuse, as far as facilities and actual operating money, is running like night and day compared to when I first took office.

As far as infrastructure is concerned, I'm the transportation chair here in the Assembly, able to get hundreds of millions of dollars more since I took that chairmanship for not only our upstate cities and also all of our mass transit companies. I'm very proud of what I've done, but that's my job. People have put a lot of faith in what I can do, and for the most part I think they will agree that I've been able to deliver for them and do those things for them.

How have you seen your neighborhood and your district evolve throughout your tenure, and how do you stay up to date with the changing needs of your constituents?

I think that all of our communities are changing all the time, and the only way that you can deal with those changes is to make sure that you're available and out in the public. It's a matter of putting in the work to understand what your community is going through.

The bottom line here is demographics have changed, but in another way they have not. I grew up on the north side of Syracuse. It was a very ethnic neighborhood: it was mostly Italian with German and some Irish. That same area now has many minorities – whether it be Congolese, Burmese, Vietnamese – all different types of immigrants, but really nothing's changed. It's still people trying to make their way in a new country with their families working hard to make that happen. I know what they're going through, I went through it too when I was young.

Although this is a new set of people in the same areas and on the same streets that I walked years ago, they're trying to do the same things. What I'm trying to do is make sure that government does what it's supposed to do as far as they're concerned, and I go back to health care, education and infrastructure – those are the things that they keep looking for.

You’re a co-sponsor of the latest data center moratorium legislation, which was introduced June 1. What concerns does the latest bill address?

There was a bill that had been introduced that was looking for a three or a four-year moratorium on data centers, and what came out this past week is a bill that has the moratorium in place for one year.

It established an independent classification of service for large data centers – in other words, they're going to be charged a different rate. The big thing that I'm concerned about is that residential rate-payers, for some reason, are going to be paying for the energy that's going to data centers. That's not right. If you're taking all that energy out of the system, there should be a premium for that. The energy itself is not there in the present time, so there has to be a way of generating that energy, and I think these data centers basically may be able – I use the word may – to help us generate that additional energy and put that energy into the system. The bill also sets energy efficiency goals for the data centers, and makes sure that it provides benefits for the communities that they're in, and then it sets labor standards as well for construction.

The one thing I definitely didn't want is to establish data centers, and then find out that our air conditioning or heat or lights go out for the residential public. That can't happen, so that's the number one concern.

The primary race that you're in the middle of is one of several throughout the state that sees an incumbent challenged by a younger progressive. What do you make of that trend, and why do you think you should continue serving your district in the state Assembly?

Well, I'm happy to see younger people get involved in politics. I'm not happy to see this opponent challenging me. But on the other hand, I think it's great that young people are getting involved in politics and want to do something for their community. Nothing wrong with that, and I'm never going to say that that's a bad thing. It's always a good thing.

But on the other hand, I think that's why we have primaries and general elections: it's up to the people to really say whether or not somebody should be reelected again or elected for the first time. I think my record shows that I can do this job, and I don't think there's anybody in Onondaga County that can represent the 129th Assembly district better than I can.

If you think it's just a matter of age, I don't know how I convince you otherwise, but if you're looking at who can actually do the job and deliver the things that you’re looking for and need, I think I'm your fellow.

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Which New York sports team owners are the most politically influential?

Jon Lentz — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The typical owner of a professional sports franchise is a billionaire – or at least a multimillionaire – who has made or inherited a fortune in another industry or profession before buying a stake in a team (or two). These big shots are judged by fans based on their team’s wins and losses. But this list asks a different question: How involved and how influential are New York’s pro sports owners in the world of politics and government?

James Dolan

Owner

New York Knicks and New York Rangers

James Dolan’s Knicks are finally in the NBA Finals, and he must also be pleased with the White House’s plan for Penn Station, which keeps Madison Square Garden right where it is. Dolan, whose company recently moved to split the Knicks and the NHL’s Rangers into separate companies, also funds a super PAC that backs city and state legislative candidates.

Steve Cohen

Owner

New York Mets

Steve Cohen just snatched one of three lucrative downstate casino licenses, facilitated no doubt by the millions of dollars he spent on an army of lobbyists. The billionaire also spends lavishly on his New York Mets, but the team hasn’t enjoyed the same success.

Woody Johnson

Owner

New York Jets

Woody Johnson has acknowledged he needs to turn things around with the beleaguered Jets. But on the political front, he’s thriving. The GOP donor was previously U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and helped Donald Trump return to the White House last year.

Hal Steinbrenner

Owner

New York Yankees

Hal Steinbrenner has yet to match the legacy of his late father, George Steinbrenner, who won seven World Series titles and was a mentor to Donald Trump. The iconic Bronx ballclub still has ties to Trump, who attended a home game last year on 9/11.

Terry PegulaOwner

Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres

Terry Pegula bought the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres in 2011 and acquired the NFL’s Buffalo Bills a few years later – earning the ire of rival Bills bidder Donald Trump. Now, Pegula is preparing to open his new heavily state-subsidized stadium this fall.

Jon Ledecky & Scott Malkin

Co-Owners

New York Islanders

Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin, who were roommates at Harvard, took ownership of the Islanders in 2014. Ledecky, a private equity investor, has donated to Democratic candidates, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Laura Gillen. Malkin comes from a prominent real estate family.

John Mara

Owner

New York Giants

John Mara has kept busy lately for the Giants, despite a cancer diagnosis last fall. The team hired John Harbaugh as coach and saw Steve Tisch, a member of the politically connected Tisch family, step down as co-owner amid scrutiny of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Joe Tsai & Clara Wu Tsai

Co-Owners

Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty

Joe Tsai bought the WNBA’s Liberty in early 2019 and acquired the NBA’s Nets later that year. The Alibaba co-founder, who owns both teams with his wife, Clara Wu Tsai, is occasionally engaged in international politics on Chinese issues.

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Owner

New York City FC

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan isn’t often mentioned in connection with New York City FC, the MLS team set to play at a new Queens stadium next year. But the United Arab Emirates official also owns Manchester City in England.

Red Bull GmbH

Owner

New York Red Bulls

Unlike many professional sports teams, the Red Bulls MLS squad is owned by a company – the Austrian energy drink company Red Bull GmbH, of course. The club plays in Harrison, New Jersey.

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Talk of open primaries dominates first COGE hearing

Sahalie Donaldson — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:01:16 -0400

More than a hundred people showed up for the first public hearing held by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Charter Revision Commission in lower Manhattan Tuesday night.

The mayor created the 15-member Commission on Government Efficiency late last month, tasking it with crafting a series of proposals to advance onto the November ballot. While the three-hour hearing’s theme technically centered on improving government “for infrastructure projects and public realm improvements,” the public testimony featured a wide spectrum of topics, including improving the outdoor dining application process, amending contract procurement rules, speeding street improvements and strengthening city ethics organizations. City Council Member Gale Brewer even briefly showed up to testify in favor of streamlining Department of Design and Construction projects and better planning for open streets.

Easily the most popular idea of the night, however, was open primaries.

Around a dozen people testified in favor of opening up the city’s elections so people of any party can vote in a single city primary. It’s an idea that’s come up frequently before. Just last year, a Charter Revision Commission convened by former Mayor Eric Adams crafted a ballot question proposing an open primary system, though members ultimately killed the divisive prospect to focus on land use reforms instead. Fabien Levy, Adams former deputy mayor for communications, was among the New Yorkers hoping to see Mamdani’s commission take on the issue.

“If you examine why our elections – especially our primaries – have such low voter turnout, it is because our system is rigged to turn voters away,” Levy testified Tuesday.

Even more recently, the latest legally dubious commission convened by Adams has sought to advance an open primaries ballot question despite opposition from the Mamdani administration. While Mamdani ordered the disbanding of the zombie-like group several weeks ago, the commission has barreled forward as if nothing had changed – including holding its third public hearing Tuesday night. Its ability to advance questions onto the ballot will likely come to a head in court with Randy Mastro, Adams’ former first deputy mayor, leading the charge.

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Does a late state budget really mean a less productive legislative session?

Rebecca C. Lewis — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:12:24 -0400

With the exception of 2020, when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic interfered with legislating, the 2026 state legislative session was Democrats’ least productive since they gained control of both chambers in 2019. Though lawmakers cast blame for that on the tardy budget – the most delayed since Hochul took office – the timing of the budget hasn’t had a clear correlation on how many bills lawmakers managed to approve, according to an analysis by City & State.

Legislators approved 759 bills in both chambers this year after Gov. Kathy Hochul ushered in the most delayed spending plan in 16 years. But a more on-time budget hasn’t always meant a more productive session. In 2024, when the budget passed on April 20, 805 bills passed through both chambers. Democrats also benefited from the leverage offered by veto-proof majorities in both the state Senate and Assembly. That year’s budget was one of only two spending plans under Hochul that actually got approved in the month of April, and was the governor’s second-most timely budget.

But in 2023, when the budget was approved May 2, lawmakers managed to pass 896 bills through the Legislature, despite taking more time to complete the budget compared to 2024. That’s the third-most bills legislators have approved in a single session since 2019. Democrats even passed 856 bills in 2025, when the budget passed on May 9 and they had lost their supermajority – and therefore negotiating leverage – in the state Senate.

Coincidentally, legislators had the same number of scheduled post-budget session days for each of those three years – 18 total shaded boxes on the legislative calendar. In nonelection years, legislators tend to stretch their session time slightly longer, even if all sessions typically have between 60 and 62 days scheduled in total.

Yet Democratic legislators’ most productive year since taking back control was in 2022, an election year with an earlier conclusion, when lawmakers passed 1,007 bills through both chambers. The scheduled session concluded on June 2, a particularly early end of the legislative session. It’s comparable to the June 4 scheduled end date of the 2026 legislative session.

Many differences exist between the 2022 and 2026 legislative sessions, perhaps most notably the amount of time it took to finish the budget. In 2022, Hochul’s first spending plan as governor, the budget was relatively timely, and was done just over a week past the April 1 deadline and leaving legislators roughly the usual two months for other business. This year, lawmakers didn’t wrap up the budget until May 27 after prolonged negotiation with the governor. It left lawmakers just six session days for everything else.

But that’s not the only difference. Democrats in 2022 were freshly empowered under a new governor who promised a new era of cooperation after a tense working relationship between Democratic leaders and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Additionally, the state Senate was in its second year of its most powerful supermajority in recent history with 43 members.

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Opinion: Why the Yankees are the real working-class team of New York City

Ross Barkan — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Rooting for the Yankees, it used to be said, was like rooting for U.S. Steel. They’re the Bronx Bombers, the Evil Empire, forever on supposedly soulless marches to pennants that, despite their lavish spending, they don’t win all that much anymore. No real New Yorker, no salt-of-the-earth working gal or fella, can root for them – so the tired argument goes. The Mets, in this formulation, must be the working-class team because they win so little. They are, in their failure, relatable – populist, even. Some have attempted to politicize this terminal incompetence: Good luck finding a Yankee cap at a DSA meeting.

But I’m here to tell you, as a Brooklyn native and lifelong Yankee fan, that the concept of the Mets as the “real” working-class team is absolutely ludicrous. Of course, there are plenty of working-class Mets fans; no one can deny that. All kinds of people root for baseball teams. But the Yankees are, as Simon van Zuylen-Wood and Kevin Dugan have argued in New York magazine, the team of the striver, the hustler, the New Yorker who wants to make it. We are an audacious, aspirational city, and our working class has grit; they really don’t like to lose. They aren’t schlumpy, they aren’t downtrodden, they aren’t taking solace in kiddie mascots and revolting, purple-accented alternate jerseys. Go tell a taxi driver in Washington Heights or construction worker in Morrisania that the Mets are the “true” working-class team and see how long that conversation lasts. (A significant chunk of the Yankee fan base is Puerto Rican and Dominican American.) The Yankees are prideful; so are actual New Yorkers. They see themselves in Aaron Judge’s towering blasts and the 25-year-old Cam Schlittler’s blazing, vengeful fastballs. They might clock in professionally, Derek Jeter-like, betraying little emotion or, in the vein of Paul O’Neill, smash something up because they want a victory that badly.

Just as the Yankees embody the battling spirit of our city, the Mets are, increasingly, the team of the gentrifier class, the laptop-addicted media and tech transplants who ditched the AL or NL Central franchises of their childhood for the warm embrace of a local underdog. The youthful precincts of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Astoria now throb with Mets energy. The Mets are the darlings of the Twitterati. Lefty politics now overlap with Mets fandom – see Mayor Zohran Mamdani – even though their franchise is owned by a multibillionaire who has cared far more about ramming a dubious casino down the throat of Queens than securing an elusive championship. And the Wilpons were no working-class heroes, either. The Yankees, of course, don’t do themselves any favors – Randy Levine, the team’s president, once served as a deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani and remains pals with Donald Trump – and it’s fair to say they’re a red mothership in a deep blue city. If one, though, is making the argument for working-class bona fides, a Trump association isn’t necessarily a disqualifier. The working class, after all, can be reactionary, and plenty of voters without college degrees chose Trump in three presidential elections. The professional managerial class didn’t – and it’s those kinds of people, in New York City, flocking to the Mets.

Had the Mets kept their spirit of ’86 – that coked-up, brawling bulldozer of a squad was New York – they might have been able to lay better claim, 40 years on, to the title of New York’s working-class team. But they didn’t. They’re also-rans, as lost as their befuddled, baseball-headed mascot. The Yankees are the only choice: now and always.

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Opinion: Why the Mets are the real working-class team of New York City

A.M. Gittlitz — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

From President Donald Trump’s visit to the Yankees’ clubhouse last fall to Mrs. Met’s enthusiastic embrace of Mayor Zohran Mamdani this spring, New York City’s greatest sports rivalry has taken on a distinctly political tone. Central to it all is a question that sounds more at home in the pages of “The Daily Worker” than a WFAN shouting match: Which team best represents New York’s working class?

The struggle session began when a Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated X account asked this question in reference to the remaining playoff teams in October 2024. The Mets won handily, taking 61%, compared to 22% for the Yankees, and 17% for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was the predictable result. The New Left, from which DSA emerged, has loved the Mets since the beginning. Historically bad as they were, the team had been something like a late sewer socialist project of Mayor Robert Wagner’s little New Deal: their municipal home, Shea Stadium, a mid-century modern work of brutalism. Branch Rickey, the ex-Dodger owner who pushed the integration of baseball in 1947, helped win over old Brooklyn leftist fans, as the beatnik-like rants of Casey Stengel brought considerable attention from downtown bohemia. Activist Jerry Rubin said whenever someone asked him for the yippies’ political program, “I hand them a Mets scorecard.” Some of the players even felt the same – Tom Seaver linked their miracle 1969 championship run to ending the war in Vietnam.

The legacy continued with the volatile relatability of the 1980s party-rocker Mets, the union militantism of John Franco and Bobby Bonilla, the unifying pride of Mike Piazza’s post 9/11 home run, Dominic Smith’s walkout following the Kenosha, Wisconsin, shootings in 2020, and the progressive-coded humor, whimsy and joy of the Gay Grimace Mets.

A small left cadre of Yankee literati blasted the 2024 poll, however. They claimed the common sense that Mets are more working class is transplant propaganda straight from the Commie Corridor politburo. A broader, more authentic working class desires to become king of the hill, top of the heap.

This nativist triumphalism, far from encouraging an egalitarian spirit among its fanbase, instead lets them roleplay as “The Boss.” This is why they demand daily “roll call” acknowledgements from their players, quickly demand any player not living up to their statistical potential be fired and consider any year not ending with another championship an injustice against the cosmic order.

Us rabbinical scholars of losing have a very different perspective. We have directed far less ire this year, for instance, toward Bo Bichette and Brett Baty than David Stearns and Steve Cohen. We see the players for what they are: wage-earners who, win or lose, are ultimately just struggling through a shift at work. This is why Roger Angell once described our cheer-jeer “Let’s go Mets” as “yells for ourselves,” recognizing that the players are workers engaged in a bizarre workplace that resembles our own, because it is, in fact, our own.

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Editor’s note: Mamdani’s blessed by good sports fortune

Jeff Coltin — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:27:31 -0400

Some nine months ago, the City & State New York team was struck with inspiration. We’d do our first-ever sports issue, timed to publish days before the start of soccer’s World Cup. You didn’t need a doctor to tell you that New Yorkers were going to be struck with World Cup Fever.

What we didn’t know at the time was that the World Cup, the biggest sporting event on earth, would be secondary in New York City to THE NEW YORK KNICKS in the NBA FINALS.

And Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose entire life has been blessed by good fortune, is reaching levels of sports happiness not seen in City Hall since Rudy Giuliani put a Yankees championship ring around his finger, gently whispering “my precious.”

Mamdani’s favorite soccer team, Arsenal, won the league title for the first time since 2004. And the citizen-of-the-world mayor was still walking on air when the Knicks punched their ticket to the finals a week later.

While the mayor’s a true Gooner (an Arsenal fan), he’s not a hardcore Knicks fan (a phenomenon that City & State’s Sophie Krichevsky addresses in this week’s cover package). But he has seized on the good vibes. He gathered some kids to sign an executive order extending bed times for the Knicks game. He then watched Game 1 at an uptown bar, making sure the cameras caught his newly endorsed congressional candidate, Darializa Avila Chevalier. And his social media team gathered heartwarming photos of Knicks fans tuning into the game across the city.

Things might get harder at Game 3, if Mamdani crosses paths with another politician who knows how to seize the soft power of fandom: President Donald Trump.

But for now? Go, New York, go New York, go.

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