Mamdani revs up his socialist property grabs thanks to gutless Julie Menin

As early as Wednesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to sign a bill banning Central Park’s beloved horse carriages — and he’ll probably be smiling as he makes it law.That’s not just because Mamdani is always smiling. He’s got reason to be happy: He’ll be doing his latest lap of running circles around this City Council and its leader, Speaker Julie Menin.  Mamdani is mayor in part because he’s really good at politics, something many opponents still don’t grasp; they see him as a lucky rookie who’s going to screw up soon. No: He’s more politically ruthless than Andrew Cuomo, and more strategically populist than Donald Trump.

 The horse idiocy is the latest example. As a candidate, Mamdani theoretically favored banning the horses, per his reply to a questionnaire prepared by anti-carriage advocates.  But he never ran on it — for a canny political reason: Only a small but intensely rabid and well-funded advocacy group cares about it.That group, NYCLASS, had only one employee and 200 volunteers as of 2024. But its power is leverage in low-turnout races.

 Local pols don’t forget the vicious campaign NYCLASS ran in 2013 against mayoral frontrunner Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker. Quinn, to her credit, stuck up for the carriage trade’s 200 jobs in her district — because she could see, as any normal person can, that the horses are treated well. Sticking to her principles contributed to her loss against ardent ban supporter Bill de Blasio. Ever since, New York’s hapless business-as-usual pols have played a game: Every mayor and council tries to ban the carriages, but nobody actually does it.

 Menin seems not to have gotten the memo that you’re not supposed to take this seriously. So, after a once-in-less-than-a-century freak fatality this June, Menin backed the ban —before listening to testimony.Her support built a veto-proof majority allowing the bill to sail through the council last month. �...