\u2019Tis the season for packed conference rooms and upscale chain restaurants, flowing drinks and hors\u2019 d\u2019oeuvres and aggressive jockeying to be elected the second-most powerful person in City Hall. Welcome to the City Council speaker\u2019s race at Somos.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And boy, did the candidates get off to the races on Thursday. The two leading contenders for speaker each held their own receptions on Thursday night \u2013 Council Member Julie Menin\u2019s in a steakhouse and Council Member Crystal Hudson\u2019s in a hotel event space. At Menin\u2019s party, sliders were on offer and waiters never let guests\u2019 wine glasses get too low. At Hudson\u2019s, attendees emptied constantly appearing trays of passed apps and stood on line at a stand-up bar. The receptions, in other words, can be heavy on the window dressing.<\/p>\n
But speaker receptions are not really for making deals or hashing out candidates\u2019 all-important vote counts. (Speaker campaigns hope to make that progress during daytime meetings here in Puerto Rico.) Instead, the receptions are, at least in part, a way for candidates to project strength. Ask supporters of either Menin or Hudson, and they\u2019d tell you the wind is at their candidate\u2019s back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A couple dozen council members and incoming members who will have a vote in the speaker race attended the parties: Menin reported 26 and Hudson reported 24. Attendance is far from a full accounting of support, particularly when both receptions competed with a marquee event featuring Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. And multiple members attended both parties \u2013 including Kevin Riley, who is on record supporting Menin, or incoming members Justin Sanchez and Elsie Encarnacion, and Progressive Caucus members Sandy Nurse, Althea Stevens and Nantasha Williams. Even candidates who are running their own speaker campaigns and will host their own receptions on Friday attended one or both of Thursday\u2019s events. Chris Marte was at both, while Selvena Brooks-Powers and Amanda Far\u00edas were at Hudson\u2019s. Former speaker candidate Carmen De La Rosa was also at Hudson\u2019s event.<\/p>\n
Menin\u2019s party was heavy on labor and county leaders: Hotel and Gaming Trades Council President Rich Maroko and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten spoke, and Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Bronx Democratic Party leader and state Sen. Jamaal Bailey were in attendance. But Menin\u2019s biggest hype-man of the night was Queens Democratic boss and Congress Member Greg Meeks. He was already understood by many inside and outside the race to be supportive of Menin, but Meeks spoke publicly about her candidacy for the first time on Thursday, heaping about as much praise onto her as one can before actually uttering the words \u201cI endorse\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why I love Julie so much is what she\u2019s done her entire life,\u201d Meeks said. \u201cIt\u2019s about pulling the people together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meeks\u2019 support of Menin also fits with the orthodox view of the race at this stage \u2013 that the progressive Hudson would be a stronger partner to Mamdani than the more moderate Menin. (Meeks endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary and did not endorse in the general election.)<\/p>\n
Hudson\u2019s reception was hosted by the Legal Aid Society and Robinhood, whose leaders praised her as a \u201cfierce advocate.\u201d Also in attendance: Department of Housing Preservation and Development Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani and Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carri\u00f3n Jr.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThis is all about the future of New York City, the future of the people who are most vulnerable among us, the people who are most marginalized among us,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cWe are in a pivotal political moment \u2013 globally, nationally, locally. I\u2019m excited for the opportunity to potentially lead the council.\u201d<\/p>\n
And though she didn\u2019t take the mic at Hudson\u2019s event, current City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams cut an understated guest-of-honor figure, receiving a shoutout during Hudson\u2019s remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Adams knows better than anyone, the speaker\u2019s race can turn on a dime. \u201cI think Crystal would make an outstanding speaker,\u201d Adams told City & State, though she didn\u2019t single out any one candidate she is supporting. She said she hoped to make other speaker receptions this week, but she wasn\u2019t at Menin\u2019s. (She was at the Mamdani event around the same time.)<\/p>\n
Still, Adams didn\u2019t totally rule out endorsing in the race for her successor, though not until later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, no endorsements tonight,\u201d she said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Up next? Even more speaker receptions on Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2019Tis the season for packed conference rooms and upscale chain restaurants, flowing drinks and hors\u2019 d\u2019oeuvres and aggressive…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":361650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,13261,5226,5225,5228,5227,170620,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-361649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-news-politics","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-somos","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}