From Campaigning to Governing: Climbing the Mountain

Zohran wins!!  Champagne corks pop, probably more likely beer can tabs click!!

The victory speech, beginning by quoting socialist Eugene V Debs was stirring, watch here, a speech to be remembered, perhaps the beginning of the end of the Trump dynasty, 

After the celebration, the post coital reality, governing.

The next two months the interregnum, a mayor-elect putting his army in place. Mayors appoint 300 commissioners and deputy commissioners, the folks who actually run the day to day operations, most of whom are virtually invisible. The Chief of Staff is the gatekeeper, the Deputy Mayors each with a portfolio, the communications staff parses the messages, all in place by January 1, the swearing in, and, behind the scenes another election, the newly elected 51 member City Council electing a Speaker who is all-powerful, from appointing members to committees to selecting committee chairs to assigning office space and directing the flow of legislation.

The  Governor and the entire state legislature face potential June primaries and the November election with Republicans seeking to unseat Kathy Hochel and the control of the House of Representatives at stake. Will she ask Zohran to campaign for her across the state?

Zohran is developing relationships with the “movers and shakers,” the real estate and financial moguls, conversations probably already taking place.

Creating a Trump strategy: how do you respond to Trump tearing away billions of budget dollars? The NY Times reports Trump controls 6% of the NYC budget.

From promises to policy, “free buses,” the MTA is not a city agency, the governor appoints the board, will the governor get onboard in crafting a “free buses” plan?

de Blasio’s major achievement was pre- kindergarten, how can Mamdani create (and fund) a child care initiative?

The major theme of Mamdani’s campaign was affordability, yes, the mayor appoints the rent guidelines board and he can free the freeze rent for rent stabilized apartments, over a million apartments.

Will the governor’s State of the State speech (early January) and Preliminary Budget (end of January) reflect any of Mamdani’s priorities?

The question of mayoral control ultimately will be decided in Albany, the current mayoral control law sunsets at the end of June, the legislature/governor will have to extend, amend or the law defaults to the prior law. In the meantime Mamdani can retain the current chancellor or appoint a caretaker from within the system.

In an article in Politico Madina Toure writes,

NEW YORK — New York City mayors spent more than two decades fighting to keep a firm grip on America’s largest school system. Zohran Mamdani wants to let go.

The democratic socialist and mayoral frontrunner would scale back the sweeping powers mayors have held over public schools in New York since Michael Bloomberg centralized control in 2002 — an extraordinary break from his predecessors and current rivals corruption that plagued local school boards, has evolved into “a culture of secrecy and patronage at the top.” His campaign has promised to expand the role of parents, educators and the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, while retaining mayoral power to appoint the schools chancellor and pursue major policy shifts such as ending kindergarten gifted-and-talented testing. But he’s been vague about how all of that would work in practice. 

The New York City school system is grappling with big problems: chronic absenteeism, a record high number of homeless students, glaring racial disparities in student performance, a costly state law mandating lower class sizes and the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts.

Mamdani recently unveiled more specific ideas for revamping the school system, including cutting wasteful spending on DOE contracts and a teacher recruitment program. In a PIX 11 interview last week, Mamdani said he’s in the process of building out his plan before the legislative session starts in January.

“The stakes of these things are such that you want to make sure that you’re sure when you’re laying out any one of these proposals,” he said.

Under mayoral control, the city executive unilaterally runs the school system and has the authority to hire and fire the schools chancellor. Mayors also appoint the majority of the 24-member Panel for Educational Policy, which makes decisions on DOE policies and contracts.

Supporters say the system makes the mayor directly accountable and allows citywide reforms to move quickly.

Critics of mayoral control contend it concentrates too much power in one person and sidelines parents and teachers, turning the panel into a rubber stamp for the mayor’s policies. They also charged that it politicizes education, with contracts and policies shaped by political alliances rather than students’ needs.

While Mamdani’s plans would mark a major shift in how the city operates, other big cities have already begun phasing out mayoral control. Chicago approved legislation in 2021 to transition toward an elected school board after decades of opposition from teachers’ union leaders, and Los Angeles and Detroit have experimented with hybrid models.

This morning the Mayor-elect in an hour long press conference announced the high profile members of his transition team, 

There is no rush to fill in the details of his education plan, yes, Mamdani will either continue the current chancellor or appoint an insider, the current mayoral control plan, by law, is in place until the governor/legislature passes legislation, the process is yet to be announced, in the meantime bask in sunlight, maybe, just maybe we seeing the beginning of the end of Trumpism and the emergence of a bottom-up school in which teachers, parents and school leaders decide what is best for the their families and the children they teache..