CD5 Winner Menin Is Seen as Front-Runner for City Council Speaker

There was little doubt that Julie Menin, the incumbent Democratic City Council member in District 5, representing a big stretch of the Upper East Side, would sweep to victory over Republican challenger Alina Bonsell.

And it was not long after polls closed on Nov. 4 that Menin, with 46,634 votes and 74.1 percent of the total, was declared the winner over Bonsell, who drew 16,299 votes or 25.9 percent of the vote.

Menin has charted a fairly independent course and is hoping she can transform that into election as the City Council speaker. Her main rival is shaping up to be Brooklyn City Council member Crystal Hudson.

Downtown City Council member Christopher Marte has also declared for the post and has released a 25-point public platform. He acknowledges he is an underdog the race. “I think my strategy is for the folks who aren’t fully on board or super-strong supporters, I want to be their No. 2 [choice],” he told City & State.

Also said to be in the running is Amanda Farias, who became the Democratic majority leader this year after Adrienne Adams gave the ol’ heave-ho to Keith Powers, who had the post.

Carmen de la Rosa, a City Council member representing a northern Manhattan district, who was also in the running, recently said she was abandoning her bid to be speaker and endorsing Hudson.

”I think it is going to come down to Julie Menin or Crystal Hudson,” one veteran Council member who did not want to be named told Straus News.

It may come down to whether Council members think a centrist or a left-of-center speaker would best serve their interests.

Marte, Hudson, and Farias are all members of the progressive caucus but are not members of the Democratic Socialists of America; all supported mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Menin, who is Jewish and very pro-Israel, made no endorsements in the mayor’s race. Since the Upper East Side voted overwhelmingly for Andrew Cuomo, it certainly did not cost her locally. Many Jewish voters were alarmed by the pro-Palestine statements that Mamdani made. One post-election survey said Jewish voters voted 2-to-1 against Mamdani.

Menin is banking on having appeal as an independent, centrist Democrat who could serve as a check on the Democratic socialist mayor-elect.

Menin and Hudson were holding competing events at the annual SOMOS Community Care retreat in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Nov. 6, according to the New York Post as they tried to woo their colleagues to vote them in as the next speaker. Farias had slated her meet and greet for Nov. 7, and Marte was scheduled to hold his on Nov. 8.

Menin, an attorney who has served as commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, lives with her husband and three children on the Upper East Side.

Hudson lives with her wife and daughter in Brooklyn, where she represents the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Clinton Hill Prospect Heights, and Fort Greene. She campaigned with Mamdani right through election day. She is a past co-chair of the LBGTQIA+ caucus and is currently co-chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian caucus.

Menin was part of a big contingent of City Council members who dropped out of the progressive caucus back in January at the time it was pushing members to sign a “statement of principles.” One of the planks that triggered the wholesale revolt was a clause urging that the NYPD and Department of Corrections be drastically cut in size.

As a result of the mass walkout, the progressive caucus shrank from a majority of the Council, with 34 of the 51 members, to an influential minority caucus with 19 members. Carlina Rivera was a member of the progressive caucus before she resigned from the Council to take a new job. Her successor, Harvey Epstein, is a Mamdani supporter and is expected to be a member of the progressive caucus once he is officially sworn into office in the next few days.

Interestingly, Mamdani expressed no preference for City Council speaker when pressed on the question during the campaign, even while at an event where he was appearing with Hudson.

Now that he is elected, some are wondering whether that hands-off stance will change and he will push to have a kindred spirit in the speaker’s role.

But history shows that mayors have to tread carefully when they intrude on Council matters.

Mayor Bill de Blasio managed to big-foot then-City Council member Dan Garodnick out of the speaker slot and pushed to have ally Melissa Mark-Viverito elected in Garodnick’s stead after his first election victory in 2013.

Garodnick, now the city Planning Commissioner, then withdrew and nominated Mark-Viverito, who was elected unanimously.

Eric Adams, however, failed when he tried to push Queens City Council member Francisco Moya for the job. Moya was facing competition from Council members Keith Powers and Justin Brannan, but they both dropped out and instead threw their support behind Adrienne Adams, who emerged victorious and ended up being a sometime antagonist to Adams throughout his four-year term.

In her City Council fundraising efforts, Menin donated $27,000 to the campaign of other City Council members. The maximum-allowed donation to any one candidate is $1,000.

The speaker is decided by a straight vote in late December of all 51 incoming members of the City Council.