MESSAGE
| DATE | 2025-12-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] How to resist Mamdani - in the Press
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https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-municipal-home-rule-law-charter-amendment-zohran-mamdani
Joseph Burns
How New Yorkers Can Resist Mamdani’s Radicalism
The state’s Municipal Home Rule Law allows voters to petition to amend
their city’s charter.
/ Eye on the News / Politics and Law, States and Cities
Dec 11 2025
/ Share
Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election with the narrowest
majority in almost a quarter-century, securing barely 50 percent of the
vote as the Democratic nominee in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
That’s hardly a sweeping mandate—nearly half of all voters cast their
ballots for one of Mamdani’s rivals.
Many of these frustrated New Yorkers are looking to Albany—or even
Washington—for help. They understand that New York State’s
constitutional structure gives Albany more power than any of the state’s
local governments, including that of New York City.
But the nearly half of New York voters who oppose the newly elected
democratic socialist don’t have to wait for Albany to come to their
rescue. They possess an effective legal tool to rein in the excesses of
the Mamdani administration: amending the New York City Charter through
voter-initiated referenda.
Unlike voters in the Western states, New Yorkers have few opportunities
to make laws through direct democracy. Californians, for example,
regularly vote on proposals for new laws or amendments to their state
constitution that began as statewide petitions.
Placing these propositions, known as initiatives, on voters’ ballots was
a key goal of the Progressive movement. While Progressives saw many of
their proposals for political reform adopted in the Western states, few
states east of the Mississippi River—including New York—followed suit.
Over the years, proposals to allow this form of direct democracy at the
state level have been introduced in Albany. None gained much traction.
But New York State permits more citizen-initiated lawmaking at the local
level than many realize.
New York State’s Municipal Home Rule Law (MHRL) allows voters to
petition to amend their city’s charter, or even to adopt an entirely new
one. Under this law, a petition with 30,000 city voters’ signature
triggers a general election vote on a charter amendment. If a city
council, through inactivity, prevents this amendment from reaching the
ballot, citizens, by submitting a second petition signed by 15,000
voters, can bypass the council and force the amendment to a vote on a
general election ballot.
The New York City Charter also includes a more limited amendment
process. If 50,000 Gotham voters sign a petition to amend the charter on
matters related to elected officials’ powers or their manner of
election, that amendment will appear on the city’s general election ballot.
While it’s not easy for voters to get a charter amendment on the ballot
through these methods, it’s not impossible, either. In 1993, New York
voters approved a charter amendment through the MHRL process, which
proposed term limits for city elected officials. Though the city council
relaxed these limits to allow Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for an
additional term during the 2008 financial crisis, they remain in effect
today, over 30 years after New Yorkers initially approved them.
Still, citizen-initiated referenda in New York face a major hurdle:
mayors. Current law allows mayors to form a charter revision commission
and propose commission-approved amendments that “bump” citizen-initiated
charter amendments off the ballot. This is only a temporary roadblock,
however, as bumped citizen-initiated amendments appear on the following
year’s ballot.
And mayors’ ability to use this mechanism to stall citizen-initiated
amendments might be coming to an end. Earlier this year, the New York
State legislature approved a bill stripping city mayors of this power.
While Governor Kathy Hochul ultimately vetoed this proposal, the state
legislature could consider and pass a new version during its 2026
legislative session.
For New Yorkers worried about an extremist Mamdani administration,
citizen-initiated amendments to the city charter could be a key tool.
Given that nearly half of the city’s voters cast ballots for someone
other than the incoming mayor, such measures will likely enjoy an
enormous base of support.
What might those reforms look like? Several have been floated in recent
years, including nonpartisan elections and scrapping ranked-choice
voting for primaries. Citizens concerned about the new mayor and the
growing political power of his progressive comrades are likely to
propose other ideas.
Those worried about the Big Apple’s prospects under a committed
democratic socialist are unlikely to find much relief from Albany.
Governor Hochul, concerned about her own political future and desperate
to keep the Democratic Party’s far Left happy, has spent the last three
months cozying up to Mamdani.
But New Yorkers shouldn’t fret. While Albany may show indifference, the
citizens of New York, through the process of direct democracy, possess a
powerful and legally established instrument to halt the excesses and
radicalism of the incoming Mamdani administration.
Joseph Burns is a partner at Holtzman Vogel and former Deputy Director
of Election Operations at the New York State Board of Elections.
--
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that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
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