It began with, of all things, a City Council effort to check mayoral power. It ended with the City Council getting checked itself along with the power of the New York voter. The City Council's effort to expand its advice and consent power to interview and confirm mayoral appointees had been set to come before the city's electorate this November with a ballot referendum.
But that effort came to a crashing halt Thursday when the Charter Revision Commission, which Mayor Eric Adams had called, approved five other ballot questions of its own including two that seek to check the City Council's legislative power. Thanks to a quirk in the City Charter itself, the proposals of the commission (convened by the mayor, and full of his appointees) superseded the advice-and-consent question of the Council (elected by the people of New York City).
Speaker Adrienne Adams went as far as to call it a dangerous attempt to shift power away from the people represented by the City Council to one single individual that individual, of course, being the mayor of New York City. Do you want a king? Speaker Adams asked ahead of the commission vote on July 25.
Mayor Adams insisted that the commission carefully examined our city's Charter, heard from residents across all five boroughs, and approved thoughtful ballot proposals which New Yorkers will vote up or down upon this November, when plenty of attention will be focused on the presidential race. The City Council says it will campaign vehemently against the commission's questions, largely as a matter of principle.
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