On his final day in office last year, former Mayor Eric Adams blocked 19 New York City Council bills — but under new mayoral leadership, the council convened last week to override a bulk of the Adams vetoes, although not all. The bills, which former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams brought to the council floor for approval, centered around affordable housing, establishing the city’s land bank system, reforming the tax lien sale, street vendor reforms, public safety concerns for minors in custody, support for security guards, civil suits for gender-motivated violence, sanitation rules, addressing misconduct in city contracts, and expanding the city’s sanctuary laws to include the Safer Sanctuary Act. All areas of the city’s governance that affect Black and immigrant communities. On December 31, 2025, as he prepared to leave office, former Mayor Adams decided to veto them all. Since that time, though, City Hall has transitioned to new leadership with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a new council speaker, Julie Menin, who replaced the term-limited Adrienne Adams. That means that an opportunity opened for the council to push through the bills that Adams chose to hinder, but now have nothing in their way.
“Every bill that the city council passes, the mayor, either has the option of signing it into law or vetoing the bill,” said Will Spisak, senior policy strategist for the New Economy Project. “If the bill is vetoed, it goes back to the council, where it could be overridden with two-thirds’ majority voting ‘yes’ to override it. But in all cases, it depends on the speaker deciding to bring that bill up for an override vote, so that’s what brought us here.”
There are plenty of bills that the council and advocates are elated to see reenacted.
Councilmember Selvena N. Brooks-Powers sponsored Bill 1297-A, which updates the Gender-Motivated Violence Act to include a civil cause of action for crimes of violence motivated by gender that occurred before January 9, 2022. Any person who brought a claim between March 1, 2023, and March 1, 2025, that also meets these requirements can amend or refile their claim.
“The New York City Council has a responsibility to protect survivors and ensure our laws cannot be weakened by ambiguity or technical loopholes,” said Brooks-Powers in a statement. “Intro. 1297 restores the full promise of the Gender-Motivated Violence Act and makes clear that no institution is above accountability. Today’s veto override affirms that this Council stands with survivors and will not allow access to justice to be taken away.”
Councilmembers Sandy Nurse and Gale Brewer combined forces to sponsor a package of bills to reform the city’s inequitable tax lien sale system, in which a homeowner owes property taxes or has past-due utility bills and the city can sell their debt. A practice that can lead to a person’s house being auctioned off. Their bill package creates the infrastructure to shift to using a New York City-established land bank that prioritizes community needs and aims to avoid unnecessary displacement of homeowners.
“It’s not all bad news,” said Spisak. “We’re excited about a package of bills that were passed — very significant reforms to the tax lien sale process. They’ll pave the path for essentially replacing the current predatory tax lien sale.”
However, advocates were disappointed that not all the vetoes were overridden.
The long-fought-for Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), which would give nonprofit entities the chance to buy multifamily buildings when they first go up for sale, was among one of the vetoed bills left out. Spisak said that informally, about 35 council members promised to vote for the override of COPA’s veto last week, but a few backed out because of real estate lobbyists.
“New York City is in a full-blown housing crisis,” said Nurse, who sponsored the bill. “Working-class New Yorkers are being priced out of their own neighborhoods while faceless LLCs and Wall Street investors scoop up our multifamily buildings and flip them for profit. After inheriting COPA last fall, we engaged housing providers, community organizations, city agencies, and industry lobbyists to strengthen the bill and move it toward passage. In less than three months, we breathed new life into a bill that had not moved in five years.”
Nurse said their “good faith effort” was thwarted by a “well-funded misinformation campaign” from the real estate interests in the city. She’s disappointed that despite having the needed votes in the council and briefly getting the bill enacted last year, COPA is again starting over. However, she’s still determined to make COPA a reality in the future.
Spisak added that the COPA bill also benefits community land trusts (CLTs), community members that pool resources to buy land and housing to prevent these properties from being preyed on by predatory landlords or private equity.
“COPA was really the idea that we came up with to use a tool in the open market to purchase properties to essentially level the playing field for CLTs to be able to acquire those properties and preserve affordable housing in their neighborhoods,” said Spisak.
“The bottom line is this: If we do not have stronger protections to keep working-class New Yorkers here, they will continue to leave,” said Nurse. “I look forward to working with Speaker Menin on re-introducing the bill and passing it this year.”