NEW YORK — The City Council has overwhelmingly passed legislation to give itself more oversight over the appointments of top mayors — the latest step in a power struggle with Mayor Eric Adams.
The bill would subject 20 positions to confirmation hearings and a vote by the 51-member Legislature, including commissioners of the buildings, transportation and sanitation departments.
“Advice and consent work,” council chairman Adrienne Adams said at a news conference before Thursday’s vote. “Advice and consent are a protection (against) … a Tammany Hall-type environment in which commissioner positions are handed out simply because of their political loyalty to one or the other.”
The vote in the council is an important step in a longer process.
Mayor Adams is expected to veto the bill, saying the council is overstepping its authority. But the speaker’s staff has already instructed members to be in town for their scheduled July 18 meeting to override the veto, and Thursday’s 46-4 vote all but ensures lawmakers will easily override him can slide.
But that alone would not make the bill law. The expansion of powers would still require voter approval in a citywide election, as it would require an amendment to the City Charter.
Such a referendum is unlikely to happen in November, as the mayor convened a Charter Revision Commission last month to pre-empt the council by putting his own proposals to a vote.
Some council members, including the chairman, saw this as a way to block the unwanted bill and in turn amend the charter to set new boundaries for the council.
The speaker said she wanted the council’s proposal to be ready in case the Charter Revision Commission failed to bring its own questions to a vote. But she said there were no plans to file a lawsuit to stop it — as the council tried in 1998 in a rift between then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and lawmakers over the use of taxpayer money for a new Yankee Stadium.
“There have been no discussions about that, and there was no intention to do so,” Chairman Adams said. “We do plan to continue with this presentation during the November vote.”
After a top City Hall employee antagonized the council by refusing to answer questions during a hearing last week, the mayor and other aides came down hard on the bill in a news conference Tuesday, arguing that the council’s bureaucratic inefficiency and political disregard would undermine the function. of executive agencies. Adams said last month that New Yorkers “need to know who to blame.”
“The seemingly innocent system of advice and consent is turning into a system of impasse, stalemate and delay,” said Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. “Introduction. 908, in our view, is a complete and utter breach of that duty.”
But those arguments found little support in the council. That even included support from conservative members like Joann Ariola, Bob Holden and David Carr, who often side with the mayor.
It was an obvious political blow to the mayor, but spokesperson Fabien Levy said it is “business as usual” at the mayor’s office.
“While the council continues to focus on rehashing a 140-year-old political battle that has already been debated,” he said in an emailed statement after the vote, “our government will continue to focus on the working class of this city who want us to focus on how we can protect public safety, rebuild our economy and make this city more livable.”
Supporting council members said New York City is “an outlier,” noting that Chicago and Los Angeles already oversee the appointments of their city councils.
The tensions over advice and consent come as the city’s legal department works under an acting corporate attorney. The mayor has declined to officially nominate his top pick, Randy Mastro, as he tries to build support for the pick despite widespread opposition to the controversial lawyer within the council.
The battle for appointments comes amid negotiations over the city’s $111.6 billion budget, due at the end of this month, and as the mayor tries to push a controversial housing proposal through the City Council. Both give lawmakers influence over the mayor’s priorities.
Asked Thursday, Chairman Adams said each issue is individual.
“We act and react with every piece of the pie,” she said ahead of Thursday’s vote. “We don’t look at the whole pie as one giant thing that we all lump together. Everything we do is very, very precisely compartmentalized.”
