Mamdanis taking over NY institutions to push his agenda testing the laws limits

Mayor Zohran Mamdani may be an ideologue, but he’s also what Niccolò Machiavelli deemed “a sensible man”: One who will “will base his power on what he controls.”And he’s using his time in office to exert greater control over city institutions — sometimes even testing the bounds of the law — to build a political machine that can persist beyond his tenure.As the recent congressional primaries revealed, the mayor’s grip on the city chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America gives him the power to unseat entrenched incumbents.Though fractured among a red-tinted mosaic of internal caucuses — including avowed Marxist revolutionaries — the DSA closes ranks behind him, marshaling tens of thousands of volunteers for his candidates and causes.Now, he’s brought the door-knockers inside government through the Office of Mass Engagement.Its commissioner, Tascha Van Auken, and Mamdani’s housing czar, Cea Weaver — both DSA leaders — are actually entering buildings to organize tenants into “unions.”And the office is using taxpayer funds to film documentaries about tenant organizing.It’s far from apparent that tenant organizing passes muster under the Conflicts of Interest Board rules, which prohibit public servants from using city “letterhead, title, personnel, equipment, resources, supplies, or technology assets” for any “non-City purpose.”If withholding rent becomes a common tenant-union tactic, that will only accelerate building disinvestment and deterioration.For the mayor and the DSA, however, forcing rent-stabilized property owners into foreclosure or bankruptcy is the point.His housing plan calls for seizing buildings from “bad actors’ hands” and transferring them to “responsible stewards” like nonprofits.Never mind that there’s no reason to think housing controlled by nonprofits or government would produce better conditions.NYCHA’s chronic corruption and mismanagement provide ample evidence to the contrary.For ...