Council Member Kallos (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

A City Council committee is expected on Tuesday to pass a bill aimed at reducing the influence of large donors on New York City candidates and elections by creating the possibility for candidates to essentially raise all smaller donations and earn enough public matching funds to fully reach the spending limit imposed by the city’s campaign finance program. But the bill, which has recently been amended in a significant way, is stirring controversy as it heads to a vote, with accusations against

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What to watch for this week in New York politics:

There are four more days of state legislative session this week, with the rent laws set to expire on Saturday, June 15. The session is scheduled to end on June 19. Rent regulations are at the top of the agenda, but there are a number of issues on the table as the session winds down. [Listen: ...

Council Member Carlina Rivera, left, one of the co-authors (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

New York City is one of the largest, most diverse, and advanced cities in the country – in fact, New Yorkers are living one-and-a-half years longer than a decade ago and nearly nine years longer than 25 years ago. Yet behind that positive sheen lies a shameful truth – our city persistently falls short in health outcomes for people of color.

As a New York City lawmaker chairing the committee that oversees our city’s largest public health system and as the

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What to watch for this week in New York politics:

The state Legislature this week is in session four of its final 11 days of the scheduled legislative session, which is set to end June 19. There is a long list of issues and bills that could see resolution by the end of the session, headlined by the state’s expiring rent regulations, which apply to roughly 1 million New York City apartments. Governor Cuomo has laid out a ten-point agenda that includes strengthening

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Fulfilling a promise he made in his successful campaign for public advocate, Jumaane Williams introduced legislation on Wednesday that would require the city to conduct an assessment of expected racial and ethnic impact brought on by proposed neighborhood rezonings, in order to ensure that the city is complying with the federal Fair Housing Act, and combat segregation and displacement.

The Fair housing Act, passed in 1968, is meant to protect against discrimination in the sale, purchase,

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What to watch for this week in New York politics:

Mayor de Blasio was back from a weekend presidential campaign trip to Nevada and spoke Monday at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum's Annual Memorial Day Ceremony. As another week unfolds for the mayor/presidential candidate, we’ll continue watching both his government and campaign schedules. This past week, before his weekend trip to Nevada, de Blasio spent Thursday in Iowa, flying there and back to participate

 (photo: @RitchieTorres)

On the steps of City Hall Wednesday afternoon, a coalition of LGBTQ rights advocates and current and former City Council members announced the launch of an initiative to elect queer candidates to the Council in 2021, when 35 seats will be open because of term limits.

There are currently five members of the 51-member City Council who identify as LGBT, all of whom are a part of the body’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus, and all of whom are not elligible for reelection to the Council: Speaker Corey Johnson and

Council Member Rosenthal, center (photo: William Alatriste\New York City Council)

City Council Member Helen Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Committee on Women and Gender Equity, plans to introduce legislation to create an Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention within the mayor’s office, she told Gotham Gazette on Monday night.

Rosenthal, who recently spearheaded passage of sweeping anti-harassment legislation, made a request to draft Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention bill following ...

(photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)

Last year, amid a national awakening about sexual harassment spurred by the #MeToo movement, the New York City Council passed a package of legislation. Among other things, it required the city to disclose more data about harassment claims and to undertake workplace climate surveys about harassment, discrimination, and other issues in order to create action plans and make improvements.

But the first climate survey results were recently delivered to the City Council and do not contain enough information to illuminate how

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What to watch for this week in New York politics:

Mayor Bill de Blasio is back after his first weekend on the campaign trail as a candidate for president. The mayor was in early caucus/primary states Iowa and South Carolina over the weekend. On Monday he’ll be in Connecticut for his son Dante’s graduation from Yale, then back to the city and his weekly appearance on NY1 in the evening.

It will be interesting to see if de Blasio has any public campaign events

Speaker Corey Johnson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson announced on Thursday a package of proposals aimed at reforming New York City’s criminal justice system to be more fair and equitable, building on changes championed by progressive politicians and advocates in New York and Albany over the last several years.

Johnson presented a vision of criminal justice in New York based on refocusing the system away from incarceration and expanding the tools available to pursue his

Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s much-touted budget savings program is not what he has made it seem.

After rapidly growing the budget over his first five years in office and resisting calls to find significant efficiencies at city agencies, de Blasio this year instituted his first “program to eliminate the gap,” or PEG, to achieve hundreds of millions of dollars in “savings.” But though the mayor boasted at his executive budget presentation of $916 million in

(photo: Pixabay License)

Industries that exploit and abuse animals have a lot of money and a lot to hide. Whether it be the fur industry, which abuses and kills animals for their skins, or the foie gras industry, which rams a foot-long pipe down the throats of innocent ducks for a luxury food item, resorting to Trump-like tactics of lies, fear-mongering, and bullying is a telltale sign that you’re on the wrong side of history.

In New York City, we have two of the most abusive and morally bankrupt industries on earth -- fur and foie gras -- spending hundreds of

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What to watch for this week in New York politics:

This might be the week Mayor Bill de Blasio announces whether he is running for President of the United States. He says he will make his decision and announcement in the month of May. De Blasio starts the week rallying outside Trump Tower on the city's puported version of a "Green New Deal."

[Listen: Max

Meera Joshi, right, at a rally (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)

Meera Joshi’s five-year tenure as the head of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission coincided with a tumultuous time for the industry she was tasked with overseeing and regulating. Joshi, who left the de Blasio administration in March, joined the What’s The [Data] Point? podcast from Citizens Budget Commission and Gotham Gazette to

Council Member Salamanca, center (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)

A Tuesday City Council hearing about how city planning is done revealed major flaws in the process and showed significant divides between the mayoral administration and the Council over a set of bills aimed at changing relevant processes. Specifically, the legislation addresses how the outcomes of neighborhood rezonings -- where land use rules are adjusted in certain geographic areas to meet new development goals -- are projected and

Monique Chandler-Waterman & Jumaane Williams (photo: @MoniqueForNYC)

The political arm of the New York City Council’s Progressive Caucus is endorsing Monique Chandler-Waterman in next week’s special election for the Council’s District 45 seat. The district was previously represented by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, whose own special election victory led to the vacancy being filled through a vote this coming Tuesday, May 14.

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City Council Member Carlos Menchaca (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)

May 8, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Pressing Immigration Issues, with City Council Member Carlos Menchaca

City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, chair of the Council's immigration committee and co-chair of its 2020 Census Task Force, joined the show to discuss a wide range of

Former Mayor David Dinkins, left, with Chirlane McCray (photo: Edwin J. Torres/City Council)

In October 1992, amid sexual harassment scandals that rocked his administration, former Mayor David Dinkins created a task force to examine the issue of sexual harassment in city government. The task force, chaired by late Congressional Rep. Bella Abzug, who led the larger Commission on the Status of Women, submitted its report to the mayor the next year in November, recommending that the city create a Citywide Office for Sexual Harassment

Council Member Dromm and Speaker Johnson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The New York City Council and budget officials from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration engaged in a familiar push-and-pull on Monday, at the first hearing on the $92.5 billion executive budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year that begins July 1.

The Council, disappointed that many of its priorities were not included in the latest spending plan presented by the mayor, pushed for more funding and pointed to hundreds of millions in revenue available to the city, but

(photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)

The number of jobs in New York City reached an all-time high this year, bringing the unemployment rate to record lows. We are the envy of the nation. But there is one key sector where jobs are declining. For the first time in more than a decade, we are seeing job losses among restaurants and food service establishments.

In an attempt to halt some of these losses, City Council Members Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams introduced legislation to prohibit employers from firing fast food workers without just cause, meaning

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What to watch for this week in New York politics:

Mayor de Blasio will announce a bid for President of the United States, possibly this week, according to a report by the New York Daily News published on Friday. De Blasio has been toying with the idea for months and promising

Council Members Rafael Espinal, left, & Brad Lander (photo: City Council)

Two years ago, the New York City Council’s Freelance Isn’t Free Act went into effect, giving freelance workers legal protections against wage theft, delayed payments, employer retaliation, and lack of contracts for their work. The first-of-its-kind law has since allowed the city to recoup thousands of dollars in wages for

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

The New York City Board of Elections, a state entity funded by the city, has a less-than-stellar reputation for running elections and has long been resistant to going beyond the letter of state law in improving voter access and participation. And this year, the city BOE must contend with a new state mandate to create an early voting program for potentially millions of voters, as well as a push by the city to provide broader poll site interpretation services in immigrant communities.

At a Tuesday

(photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The 2020 Census is less than a year away, and it is imperative that every single person living in New York is counted. In Mayor de Blasio’s proposed Executive Budget, New York City now has $26 million set aside for census outreach, in addition to an undetermined portion of the State’s $20 million that will go to the City.

A good start, but we need more than $26 million to ensure a full count, and with less than a year to go before the counting begins, there is still too much