Menin Elected Speaker of City Council

Julie Menin, who has quietly campaigned to be the new City Council speaker for months, realized her dream when she was unanimously elected by a 51-0 vote on Jan. 7.

Political observers say the centrist Democrat will be a counter balance to some of the more progressive policies of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist.

“Words truly cannot describe the tremendous gratitude I feel for my incredible colleagues. I am humbled by the faith, trust, and confidence you have placed in me,” Menin said in her speech accepting the nomination. “And I pledge to be a speaker for every single member of this council.”

Shortly after the November election, in which the 58-year-old council member was re-elected by a landslide, Menin said she had secured at least 37 votes and was declaring victory. Newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani had not made a formal endorsement for speaker, but Politico said at one point he was urging several candidates who were quietly campaigning against Menin for the job to unite behind one candidate, Crystal Hudson.

But Menin’s opponents dropped out of the race shortly after Thanksgiving after Menin said she had lined up enough votes to guarantee her election. She extended an olive branch to her opponents after her election on Jan. 7.

“I want to extend a special thank-you to the members who ran spirited campaigns for speaker—Crystal Hudson, Chris Marte, Selvena Brooks-Powers, and Amanda Farias. You all ran races of integrity, and I look forward to working with you in the coming years.”

Menin had not endorsed Mamdani in the general election, and the district she represents on the Upper East Side went for Andrew Cuomo in the general election. She nevertheless pledged to work with the new mayor even as some see her as a counter balance to Mamdani’s more progressive positions.

The speaker post was last held by a Manhattanite in 2006 when Gifford Miller, who was on hand for Menin’s election, held the job. Past speakers Adrienne Adams, Corey Johnson, and Melissa Mark-Viverito were also on hand.

The speaker determines which bills advance beyond committee to a vote by the council, making Menin what is said to be the second-most-powerful elected official in the city after the mayor. She succeeds term-limited Adrienne Adams, who often clashed with Eric Adams while trying to hammer out a new budget, especially when the then-mayor was cutting programs to pay for the migrant crisis that he said cost the city $8 billion.

The mayor proposes the city’s annual budget, which in fiscal 2026 is $115.9 billion, but it gets hammered out in sometimes contentious negotiations with the mayor before it gets passed by the city council.

“New York has a long history of turning moments of challenge into moments of opportunity,” Menin said. “Together, we will forge a new City Council that takes a more forceful and proactive approach to New York’s shared goals.”

She said she would work to find common ground with Mamdani.

“We live in a day when the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and the first Jewish speaker of this Council, are serving at the same time,” she said. “This moment truly is historic. But what will write this interfaith leadership into the history books is if it can act as an opportunity for all of us to come together—to calm tensions, to bridge divides, and to recognize we are one city, no matter the religion we practice or the language we speak.”

One fault line that already opened up is over Mamdani’s decision not to extend two executive orders signed by Eric Adams that Jewish groups strongly supported.

In one, Adams had banned the city council from passing laws that would boycott Israeli companies. The second order that Mamdani let lapse concerned a definition put forth by the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance over the working definition of what words constitutes Jew-hatred.

In her address, Menin said her grandmother and mother were Holocaust survivors, and she detailed the circuitous route they took before arriving in America, fleeing post-war Hungary for Czechoslovakia before emigrating to Australia for six years before they settled in New York City in what was known then as Little Hungary in Manhattan.

Menin, a mother of four, was a lawyer before opening up a restaurant and catering business that was destroyed by 9-11. She became active in downtown politics as chair of Community Board 1 and served as commissioner of the city’s department of consumer affairs and headed the Mayor’s office of media and entertainment under Bill de Blasio. She also managed the city’s 2020 Census outreach. She was first elected to the City Council in 2022 from District 5, which includes a big chunk of the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island. She’s term-limited in her current term, which will expire at the end of 2030.

On the legislative front, Menin pledged to rein in no-bid contracts, and to use vacant or underused city properties as potential development sites for affordable housing. She said she would push to reduce fines for small businesses, invest between $1,000 and $3,000 in accounts for kindergartners in so-called baby bonds and slash consumer healthcare costs.

Menin enjoyed broad support from organized labor in her push to become speaker, and many union leaders turned up at the City Hall ceremony, including Rich Maroko, president of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council; Manny Pastreich, president of the powerful Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union. Also on hand: Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers; Henry Garrido, executive director of DC37, which is the city’s largest public service union; and Stuart Appelbaum, president of the retail, wholesale, and department story union.