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Ross Barkan is a Jacobin columnist based in New York City. He is the author of The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York.
New York’s post–Andrew Cuomo governor, Kathy Hochul, has been taking a page from her disgraced predecessor, savvily maneuvering to sideline the state’s resurgent left — even when the main beneficiary turns out to be the GOP.
New York mayor Eric Adams ran openly as a pro-landlord candidate, and now — unsurprisingly — he’s governing as a pro-landlord mayor. His recent appointments to the city’s rent board now guarantee that higher rents are on their way for working-class New Yorkers.
A series of New York State primaries this June featuring Democratic Socialists of America–endorsed candidates will be a testing ground for the strength of socialist politics in a new, embattled era for progressives.
New York mayor Eric Adams, whose first one hundred days in office just came to a close, has had few accomplishments to brag about. But his hidden source of political strength lies precisely in the fact that he never promised he’d do much in the first place.
New York governor Kathy Hochul has dished out a massive subsidy for the billionaire owner of the Buffalo Bills, burying the measure in a must-pass state budget. It’s a sign that while Andrew Cuomo may be gone, his brand of politics lives on in Albany.
The Left faces a tough road in any challenge to New York governor Kathy Hochul, who is now in position to win the primary in this year’s gubernatorial race. But the lieutenant governor’s race holds promise for the state’s progressives.
Andrew Cuomo, New York’s disgraced former governor, is hoping to mount a political comeback. But his posturing as a victim of “cancel culture” can’t change the fact that his comeuppance was richly deserved.
In his latest surprise move, New York City mayor Eric Adams has named three antigay pastors to his administration. He appears happy to buck liberal opinion and basic human dignity and decency to cater to homophobic social views.
This spring, New York’s Democratic Socialists of America is eyeing a promising state senate race between Kristen Gonzalez and Elizabeth Crowley that could put the group in position to form a significant bloc of legislators in the state’s upper house.
Born at the height of the Clinton era, the Working Families Party thought it had found a way to build a labor party in America. Today, it’s advancing progressive politics with a far narrower base than it expected.
The handpicked successor to a radical Brooklyn political dynasty is challenging an establishment-backed Democratic candidate for state legislature solely on a third-party ballot line, in one of New York’s poorest — and most loyally Democratic — neighborhoods.
When dealing with Eric Adams, New York’s eccentric but unabashedly pro-landlord mayor, progressives will need to throw out the old anti-Trump playbook and focus on those issues — like rent laws — that are most important to the working-class New Yorkers who elected him.
Progressives and socialists in the New York State legislature are bracing themselves for a titanic fight with the state’s real estate industry and landlord lobby over “good cause” eviction protections, a long-standing goal of the housing movement.
Eric Adams’s “low-skilled workers” comment this week was read as a gaffe, but the New York mayor was actually expressing support for service workers. The real problem is that Adams has no interest in substantive policies to aid New York’s working class.
It now looks as if Andrew Cuomo will never be held legally accountable for his crimes — neither his acts of harassment against women nor his cover-up of COVID nursing home deaths. But in both New York and national politics, his name will forever live in infamy.
New York City’s incoming mayor, Eric Adams, was dealt an early defeat last week when his hand-picked candidate for council speaker was rejected in favor of Adrienne Adams. It’s a sign that Mayor Adams will not have a rubber-stamp council at his disposal.
In a few months, the New York City Council will elect a new speaker for the first time since AOC’s 2018 shock victory shook up city politics. A strong left bloc in the city council could check mayor-elect Eric Adams’s law-and-order politics.
In 1993, New York had its first black mayor — and Rudy Giuliani stirred up a police riot at City Hall.
Few know his name, but Robert Mujica is one of New York State’s most powerful people: a neoliberal super-technocrat who long served as Andrew Cuomo’s right-hand man. Despite initially promising a clean break, Cuomo’s successor, Kathy Hochul, is signaling that Mujica will stay.
Back in 2011, the media dismissed Occupy Wall Street as a mere flash in the pan. But in the long run, the movement reshaped the landscape of New York City and State politics.