Members of the City Council on Wednesday unanimously voted for Julie Menin, who represents Manhattan’s Upper East Side, as their next speaker.
The City Council speaker leads the 51-member body. She sets the legislative agenda by deciding which bills come for a vote before the Council, wrangling members on legislation and negotiating the annual city budget.
The speaker can use her role to sway other power players on issues and shed light on pressing subjects through public hearings.
Menin, who secured initial support in a contested race from members across the political spectrum, pledged to be a speaker for each Council member and their communities.
“As a Council, we must work to ensure that every single family feels safe enough to put down roots in their neighborhoods,” she said. “As your speaker, I want to anchor our vision of leadership in the story of our city, a vision as hopeful of the immigrants who come here and as persistent as the spirit that drove them here.”
Menin, an attorney and a longtime fixture of Democratic politics, served as commissioner of the city’s consumer affairs agency, was commissioner of media and entertainment, and managed the city’s 2020 Census outreach.
Menin said her priorities include reining in no-bid contracts to save the city millions of dollars, and promoting new affordable housing by examining public libraries and vacant or underused public properties a potential development sites. She promised to fill staff vacancies at agencies, reduce fines for small businesses, invest in baby bonds and slash consumer health care costs.
She also said she wants to pass legislation to enact protest buffer zones around schools and houses of worship, as Gov. Kathy Hochul supports and Mamdani directed the police department to look into as part of an executive order he signed on his first day.
Menin is the city’s first Jewish speaker and is seen as more moderate than Mamdani, a democratic socialist and the city’s first Muslim mayor.
“It’s a real opportunity for communities to come together,” she said.
As speaker, Menin may act as a check on the mayor, just as she will at times collaborate with him. She backs Mandani’s plan for free universal child care and has signaled an early willingness to work with him on common concerns.
On Monday, for example, Mamdani and Menin appeared together at a press conference in Long Island City, announcing executive orders related to tamping down on junk fees and illegal subscription practices. Both officials said they were excited about the “partnership” between City Hall and Council to advance consumer and worker protections.
Menin and the Council will soon face looming challenges. They, along with the mayor, will have to contend with significant budget gaps that will be made worse by federal funding cuts as they hammer out the budget.
It will also be up to Menin to decide what to do with 19 pieces of legislation that the City Council passed in December and Mayor Eric Adams vetoed before he left office. She could put some or none up to a vote for the new Council to override.
Some of those measures, such as the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives housing groups first dibs on some apartment building sales, have Mamdani’s support. Menin abstained from voting on it last year and did not commit to its fate ahead.
Adams also vetoed some bills that Mamdani and his allies had opposed, including several that set guidelines for details like apartment size and affordability levels for new housing that receives subsidies from city government.
Council colleagues from all five boroughs and across the ideological spectrum praised Menin’s integrity and leadership ahead of their votes in the Council’s City Hall chambers.
Councilmember Kevin Riley (D-The Bronx) called her a “true bridge-builder.”
“She understands how the city works and how the decisions we make here affect New Yorkers and their daily lives,” he said.
Councilmember Farah Louis (D-Brooklyn) said Menin knows “how to grow our economy while lifting up women and working families.”
From Staten Island, Frank Morano, one of just five Republican members of the Council, urged Menin to take the minority seriously.
“Republicans are New Yorkers too, and they deserve just as much of a voice as anyone else, and Madam Speaker, it’s my hope and quite frankly my expectation that we can work with the administration whenever we can, but to be a check on the administration when it goes too far,” Morano said.
Wednesday’s vote came as a formality after Menin declared her victory in the speaker’s race in late November, having amassed the support of a majority of members and key unions, including the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, 32BJ SEIU, the United Federation of Teachers, Transport Workers Union, the New York City Central Labor Council and Communications Workers of America District 1.
