Mayor Adams introduced early Thursday he’s convening one other Constitution Revision Fee to advance referendum questions onto subsequent 12 months’s native election poll — and identical to his first one, this initiative is about to dam a plan by Metropolis Council leaders to launch their very own effort to amend the town’s structure.
The mayor’s new 14-member fee will look into proposing poll questions for the November 2025 poll that might amend the Metropolis Constitution to assist “combat the city’s generational housing crisis,” in line with a press launch from Adams’ workplace. The transfer comes on the heels of the Metropolis Council passing the mayor’s “City of Yes” plan that seeks to spice up housing manufacturing within the metropolis.
The Council at present holds massive sway within the ULURP course of, which proposed actual actual property developments and different massive land use adjustments should endure earlier than shovels can hit the bottom.
It wasn’t instantly clear how the mayor wish to see the Council’s ULURP powers amended. Spokespeople for the mayor didn’t instantly reply to questions.
Apart from housing, the sources mentioned the mayor’s staff have engaged in discussions about tapping the fee to look into repealing parts of New York’s “sanctuary city” standing.
The standing bars metropolis sources from getting used to assist federal authorities with deporting immigrants, besides in circumstances involving people convicted of significant or violent crimes.
Adams has lengthy lamented adjustments made below the de Blasio administration that strengthened protections for the town’s undocumented inhabitants. His curiosity in rolling again these adjustments comes as incoming President Trump has vowed to launch mass deportations of immigrants throughout the nation, no matter whether or not they’ve been convicted of any crimes apart from crossing into the U.S. illegally.
Metropolis & State first reported Wednesday night the mayor was anticipated to quickly launch one other Constitution Revision Fee.
The brand new fee will likely be chaired by Richard Beury, the CEO of Robin Hood who was a deputy mayor below Mayor Invoice de Blasio. Different members of the panel embody Partnership for New York Metropolis’s Kathy Wylde, homeless advocate Shams DaBaron and Adams adviser Diane Savino.
Adams’ first Constitution Revision Fee, shaped this previous spring, superior 5 poll questions onto this 12 months’s presidential election poll.
4 of the questions handed, together with the 2 most significant ones — which positioned new necessities on how the Metropolis Council drafts and assesses the price of new laws.
The mayor launched that fee after Council Speaker Adrienne Adams mentioned her Democratic majority was planning to advance their very own poll referendum questions on the 2024 poll that might have given the Council extra energy to dam sure high metropolis authorities hires the mayor can at present make unilaterally.
Due to a quirk in metropolis regulation, referendum questions pushed via by the Council can’t seem on a poll that options questions superior by the mayor. Thereby, the mayor’s fee this 12 months derailed the Council’s effort.
That dynamic prompted Speaker Adams and scores of her Democratic colleagues to accuse the mayor earlier this 12 months of intentionally launching his fee to stifle their initiative. The speaker mentioned in July the mayor was behaving like an autocratic “king.”
Like his first fee, the mayor’s second constitution revision effort is infuriating the speaker and her colleagues because it stands to dam an introduced plan by them to roll out their very own Constitution Revision Fee for subsequent 12 months’s election.
“Mayor Adams’ administration once again appears ready to politicize the Charter Revision Commission process by establishing yet another commission to block the democratic rights of New Yorkers to offer charter revisions, despite the Council opening its own commission up to the mayor,” mentioned Shirley Limongi, a spokeswoman for the speaker, referencing a proposal for the Council’s fee to incorporate mayoral appointees.
“This Commission seeking to hand our city over to the Trump administration to sow chaos by changing sanctuary city laws that protect our diverse immigrant communities and public safety in New York City will be something that Council Members and New Yorkers fight and oppose,” Limongi added.
Final month, the Council overwhelmingly handed a invoice launched by the speaker that might convene a 17-member Constitution Revision Fee tasked with trying over the total constitution to search out methods to enhance it.
The speaker hasn’t floated any explicit poll questions she would possibly need her fee to advance however sources have indicated there may very well be a push to resurrect the blocked initiatives to increase the Council’s oversight of mayoral appointments.
Regardless, with the mayor launching his second fee, the speaker’s panel may very well be lifeless within the water, at the least because it pertains to the 2025 election poll.
Initially Printed: December 12, 2024 at 9:10 AM EST
