New York City's Democratic Socialists of America chapter has proposed a resolution setting a goal of electing a socialist as City Council speaker in 2029, part of a broader strategy to keep Mayor Zohran Mamdani aligned with the left even as he governs from City Hall. The chapter plans to put the resolution to a vote at its biennial convention this Saturday.
As reported by the New York Post, the resolution frames the Council speakership push as a way to turn the legislative body into an independent political pole that can hold Mamdani accountable to the DSA's agenda rather than simply rubber-stamping his administration. The same reporting indicates the plan also aims to prevent Republicans and conservatives from monopolizing any public discontent with Mamdani's governance, with the resolution reportedly stating that criticism from within the coalition is meant to strengthen the mayor against the right, not weaken him.
The convention itself, set for Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., brings together delegates representing all NYC-DSA members to debate and vote on proposals shaping the chapter's political direction, according to the NYC-DSA 2026 City Convention site. The chapter says it now counts 15,000 members, a figure cited on the same convention page.
Four Seats Now, a Wave of Vacancies by 2029
Currently just four of the City Council's 51 members are active DSA members, according to the Post's reporting: Tiffany Cabán, who represents Queens; Alexa Avilés, who represents District 38 in Brooklyn; Chi Ossé, who represents District 36 in Brooklyn; and Shahana Hanif, who represents District 39 in Brooklyn. All four are expected to be term-limited out in 2029, meaning the DSA will have to run new candidates just to hold the ground it already has, per the same reporting.
That timeline lines up with a much larger reshuffling already underway. More than two-thirds of the Council's membership is expected to reach term limits in 2029, leaving only 14 current members eligible to run for reelection, according to City & State New York. Current Speaker Julie Menin, who was unanimously elected to the post, will also be term-limited out that year, per the Post's account — setting up a wide-open race for her successor.
A Coalition Strategy, Not a Guarantee
DSA has acknowledged a socialist speaker may not be achievable in 2029 and says it will work in coalition with other left and progressive organizations, along with organized labor, toward that goal, the Post reports. If the socialist speaker goal proves unattainable, the chapter says it will instead back the most left-aligned viable candidate who commits to the bloc's priorities.
The Just Break Already Caucus, a group tracking the convention on Substack, urged delegates to make sure a handful of proposals got floor debate rather than being quietly folded into a consent agenda, writing that “delegates should vote now to see these five proposals discussed.” The caucus also took issue with an amended NYC-DSA resolution on the No More 24 movement, arguing it “covered for Zohran, and has since driven a wedge between DSA and a workforce of mostly immigrant women,” according to the Just Break Already Caucus.
Using the Council as a Policy Laboratory
Beyond the speaker's chair, the Post's reporting describes DSA's broader ambition to use the Council as a laboratory for policy priorities the resolution says Mamdani hasn't addressed, including the NYPD and public safety. The proposal reportedly identifies police reform and expansion of a Department of Community Safety as specific policy experiments, with messaging to be tested first in districts where Mamdani's margin of victory was strongest before any citywide rollout.
A Council bloc friendly to DSA would, according to the Post, support Mamdani on budget passage, speaker selection, and pushing back against state preemption efforts from Albany — while also reserving the right to file formal dissents when strategically useful and to champion demands the administration itself cannot easily make. The arrangement reflects how closely NYC-DSA's own fortunes are now tied to the Mamdani administration's performance. “We see the fate of the organized left and the Mamdani administration's fate to be tied together,” NYC-DSA cochair Gustavo Gordillo told The New York Times the previous fall. A The Drift piece noted the chapter has more than doubled in size since the 2024 election cycle began, part of a national DSA membership now numbering 120,000.
Echoes of an Earlier City Hall Partnership
Writer Ross Barkan, drawing the comparison on his Substack, has likened a potential Mamdani-speaker alliance to Bill de Blasio's first-term partnership with then-Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, which produced legislation such as mandated paid sick days for New York City workers. Barkan argues that a larger socialist bloc in the Council would help a reelected Mamdani push his agenda, writing that it would help the mayor to have “a large bloc of socialists to rally around him in the City Council,” according to rosselliotbarkan.com.
The jockeying over who eventually succeeds Menin has already been underway for months. Some members of the Council's 17-person Progressive Caucus have said they want a speaker who works in lockstep with a Mamdani administration's priorities, City & State reported ahead of Menin's election, with Crystal Hudson described in later coverage as Menin's strongest competitor in that race. With so many term limits converging on 2029, the next speaker's race may look very different from the one that just concluded — and DSA is signaling it intends to be a bigger part of it.
