Nyc Council Speaker, Fledgling Foil For Mamdani, Gets Into Political Pickle Of Her Own

NEW YORK — New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin has emerged as a prominent check on America’s most-watched mayor, sparking several unwelcome controversies for democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in just three months.

Now she’s created a tempest for herself.

Menin is pursuing complex legislation related to home health aides that has stirred some of the most powerful forces in New York. It’s a cause she signed onto before winning her current position, but three months into her stewardship of the 51-member body it’s causing her major problems.

During last year’s race for speaker, she struck a deal with a fellow Manhattan lawmaker: In exchange for her colleague’s support, Menin pledged to help advance the home health aide bill that had, under previous Council leadership, failed to overcome a mountain of opposition.

Nearly everyone involved agrees something needs to be done to help underpaid and overworked home health care workers pulling 24-hour shifts.

But estimates of the bill’s cost have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars and there are concerns over whether it would jeopardize the safety of patients. With the state trying to finalize its budget and the city’s finances a mess, a powerful labor union, the mayor’s office and Gov. Kathy Hochul — exactly the wrong enemies a new speaker wants to make en masse — are all pushing back.

Earlier this month, Menin pulled the bill from consideration. But her troubles are far from over.

With her word hanging in the balance and advocates pursuing a no-holds-barred pressure campaign that included a hunger strike, the path she charts forward will reveal much about a speakership still in its infancy and Menin’s ability to navigate the type of perilous political territory the mayor traverses on an almost daily basis. By extension, that will affect her ability to effectively temper her governing partner across City Hall.

“Everyone bore witness to this promise,” said Yinghao Tan, a former 24-hour home care worker and advocate for the legislation. “Are you capitulating now to Mayor Mamdani? Are you bowing down to Governor Hochul?”

Nobody wins the race for Council speaker without a few backroom deals.

Local political organizations want their loyalists to score plum committee assignments in exchange for a bloc of votes. Unions, which can help build key coalitions, are looking for someone who will have their back during legislative fights or contract negotiations. And members themselves might leverage their support for a particular committee post or help with a specific policy.

Last fall, it was patently clear what Council Member Christopher Marte wanted: The lower Manhattan official has been almost singularly focused on the issue of boosting health aides who provide care at the homes of patients.

The program is regulated by the state and largely funded through Medicaid. A portion of these aides work 24-hour shifts, sleeping over at the homes of high-need patients. Yet, under state legal guidance, they are only paid for 13 hours.

Rallying outside City Hall for weeks, advocates described decades of grueling schedules — often with little sleep — caring for elderly and disabled New Yorkers with no breaks and tending to some patients repeatedly throughout the middle of the night. Some likened the shifts to modern-day slavery.

“I think it’s a moral crisis, and it’s something that has to be fixed,” said Marte, who has now introduced his bill for a third time in four years. “I’m not just doing it because my mom did this and my aunts did this — these workers are being left in the shadows and are being exploited.”

Late last year, Marte appeared to gain new ground when he dropped his own bid to become Council speaker and backed Menin’s candidacy. Menin, in exchange, pledged to help advance Marte’s long-gestating legislation, which would have required home care agencies to assign two 12-hour aides to patients in need of round-the-clock care.

On March 18th, Menin appeared to go a step further. She stood alongside Marte amid a throng of beaming advocates and vowed the legislation would pass in April. When asked if there would be changes, Menin answered in the negative — a pledge advocates took to mean the bill language would remain unadulterated, though a person close to the speaker said Menin was not actually ruling out changes to the text.

That’s when things started going poorly.

At the time, Menin had begun to establish herself as a more weighty counterbalance to Mamdani, pushing back on the mayor’s budget strategy, pouncing on the political toxicity of his proposed property tax increase and even helping to orchestrate a small protest outside the mayor’s 100-day celebration in Queens. But an April 13th letter in opposition to the legislation signed by the likes of DC 37, the city’s largest public sector union, and the Legal Aid Society began to complicate this momentum.

The signatories, which also included disability rights advocates, warned the bill would dramatically increase costs for the program beyond what would be covered by Medicaid — meaning the city or state would have to bear the full financial burden, something neither wanted to do. And, absent rule changes at the state level, they further cautioned, the proposed shift in policy would result in some patients not receiving adequate care.

“If passed and signed into law, Intro 303 would lead to a complete destabilization and collapse of the home care system, leaving not only those who require 24-hour live-in services in peril but all people who require care and home care workers who provide the care,” the groups wrote.

Separately, another major union representing home health aides, 1199SEIU, said any changes to the system must be fully funded — an implicit knock on the bill given the slim chances of attaining the necessary cash.

In response, Menin pulled the legislation from consideration ahead of an April 16 meeting where it would have come up for a vote.

Last week, as Documented reported, the governor also expressed her opposition to Menin’s team — a rebuke that implies Albany will not front the $460 million 1199 has estimated the legislation would cost, though Marte disputes that metric.

The mayor, meanwhile, backed the legislation as a candidate and continues to reiterate support more generally for home care workers. On Wednesday, however, he was happy to emphasize it was a problem for Menin to take the lead on.

“Ultimately, it’s a decision for the Council to make which legislation they bring forward for a vote and how they vote on that legislation,” he said at an unrelated press briefing.

All this puts the Council speaker in a tight spot.

Menin has sought to portray herself as a trusted leader to her members and a sober budget analyst as she negotiates the city’s $127 billion spending plan with the mayor. Going back on her word to Marte would harm one side of that image, while passing legislation that might trigger hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending would upend the other.

At a press conference in mid-April, Menin downplayed the governor’s opposition, saying Hochul disliked a prior version of the bill and that a revised proposal would be forwarded to the governor’s office. The speaker’s office said Friday it had also sent new bill language to the mayor’s office.

But what the end result will look like remains muddled.

“Speaker Menin has long fought for strong worker protections and believes more must be done to prevent exploitation and ensure safe working conditions,” spokesperson Benjamin Fang said in a statement. “As part of the ongoing legislative process, the Council has sent an updated version of this bill to the mayoral administration for review, and we remain in constant communication with stakeholders throughout this process."

Marte told POLITICO he has agreed to concessions to the bill that would allow workers to consent to working more than 56 hours a week and delaying the bill’s implementation until next year to allow time to figure out funding. The Mamdani administration has sought to streamline the worker complaint process with existing government intake procedures. And DC 37 has advocated for exempting workers represented by the union.

Whether any or all of these alterations will appease enough of the parties invested in the legislation, however, remains to be seen.

In a April 23 press release, Marte announced that he and the speaker’s office reached an agreement to advance legislation supported by advocates by mid-May — though Menin’s office said no date was agreed to and talks are ongoing.

“If there is no action on this bill by May 15, I will be with these workers on the ground, and taking whatever action we need to take to make sure that they put this bill to a vote,” Marte said.