Lower Manhattan City Council Member Seeks Leadership of Municipal Legislature
Fresh off a successful reelection bid, City Council member Christopher Marte, who represents Lower Manhattan in the municipal legislature, has announced that he will seek election by his colleagues as Speaker of that body. (Although the general election is not until November, Mr. Marte won the Democratic primary in June with 62 percent of the ranked-choice vote, and is not being opposed by any Republican candidate.)
The election for Speaker will be held within the City Council in December. The current Speaker, Adrienne Adams, is barred by term limits from continuing to serve in the Council after this year, spurring her recent bid for the Democratic party’s mayoral nomination, which she lost to Zohran Mamdani. The City Council Speaker – who sets that body’s agenda, presides at all meetings, names committee chairs, and controls the pipeline of proposed legislation – is arguably the second most powerful official in New York City government, ranking behind only the Mayor.
Mr. Marte, an unabashed progressive, has been a consistent voice for liberal values since taking office in 2022. He has consistently advocated for affordable housing (along with limits on development), while opposing the outdoor restaurant dining sheds that proliferated during the Covid pandemic. He has also been a persistent critic of the ongoing plan to build the world’s tallest jail in Chinatown. On these issues and many others, he has seldom hesitated to clash with the Mayor’s office or the Council’s leadership, often preferring to cast “no” votes alone (or as part of a tiny minority) rather than compromise on policies he objects to. Last December, for example, he was the only City Council member from Manhattan to vote against Mayor Eric Adams’s City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning package, arguing that the lack of sufficient guarantees for affordable housing makes the plan a giveaway for the real estate industry.
More recently, Mr. Marte has scored multiple wins, often in partnership with City Hall and the Council’s incumbent leadership. In June, the plan to demolish the Elizabeth Street Garden, which he has opposed for years, was cancelled by the Mayor. Earlier in the same month, Mayor Adams dropped a proposal that Mr. Marte had worked to block which would have switched healthcare for retired City employees to a Medicare Advantage plan, which many regarded as inferior to existing coverage.
But Mr. Marte has often been stymied by the same coalition that has occasionally collaborated with him. His proposed law to end the so-called “24-hour workday” for home healthcare attendants, for example, has remained in legislative limbo for years.
“If the Speaker doesn’t agree with your Council member, your community gets punished,” he says, explaining why is seeking the Speaker’s post. “Who New Yorkers vote for should be who represents them in the City Council. Instead, we have the shadowy position of the Speaker making backroom deals that cut everyday New Yorkers out of the equation and replace them with lobbyists and special interests. Bills with dozens of co-sponsors are denied hearings no matter how many times you email your Council Member, and popular programs can get cut from your community if your Council Member disagrees with the Speaker on a completely different topic.”
“New Yorkers are living in an illusion of a democracy and nobody has the guts to tell them,” Mr. Marte continues. “I’m running for Speaker because I believe in my colleagues. I want them to be the ones making decisions for their constituents – that’s what they were elected to do. My platform restores the people’s voice to City Hall, sets Council Members up for success, and raises the bar for transparency and democracy. The system is broken; I’m running to fix it.”
Among the practices he vows to stop if elected Speaker, Mr. Marte says, “currently, Council Members are stripped of committee chairs, have funding withheld from nonprofits and public works projects, or legislation blocked based on their relationship with the Speaker. If they vote ‘no’ on the budget, or publicly disagree with the Speaker’s position, they face retaliation that not just hurts their career, but the people of their district.”
Mr. Marte also wants to create Council rules that would require any proposed legislation with 26 co-sponsors (a simple majority of the Council’s 51 members) be guaranteed a hearing within 90 days of introduction, while any measure with 34 co-sponsors (a two-thirds supermajority, which can override a mayoral veto) would automatically go to a vote. Both of these changes would be transformative, because the Council Speaker currently has the authority to prevent hearings and block votes on any proposed law, regardless of how much support it has.
Mr. Marte is entering a crowded field of aspirants, including Julie Menin (a former Lower Manhattan resident and chair of Community Board 1, who now represents the Upper East Side), as well as Council members Crystal Hudson and Amanda Farías (from Brooklyn, and the Bronx, respectively).