Mamdanis test case for law-defying socialism

Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week signed a law that serves as a test case of getting away with constitution-defying socialism.Passed quietly through the City Council, and watered down from an earlier version vetoed by Mayor Eric Adams, the Community Opportunity for Purchase Act still tramps all over property owners’ right to sell to a bidder of their choice.As only the second law Mamdani’s deigned to sign so far, it clearly carries great meaning for the mayor as both a policy win and an ideological keystone. Starting Jan.1, it will stop the private owners of about 2,100 properties (rent-regulated buildings with sufficient code violations) from simply selling their properties on the open market: When they reach a price with any buyer, they must then give “qualified nonprofits” (essentially, ones run by Mamdani allies) 90 days to make an offer.That is, the landlord is required to sell to favored bidders if they match the price.Notice: This isn’t creating any opportunity for the community, as the law’s title pretends, but only for the interests that control the nonprofit.Which of course is how socialism always winds up working in practice.The shift won’t even benefit tenants — it doesn’t lower rents, only changes who collects them.And nonprofits have to cover the same costs as any other landlords, with any income over that going into the nonprofit’s hands even if it doesn’t get called a profit.As for the pretense that the new owners will be better custodians of the property, just consider the City Housing Authority’s near $100-billion repair backlog.Notice, too, that nonprofits are also struggling with the impact of the mayor’s rent freeze: They can’t get vital financing, either, because the math of rent-regulated owners meeting payments no longer adds up.Meanwhile, COPA directly reduces the value of the private buildings it targets: Not only does it at least delay any sale, it guarantees lower private-sector bids, which must include the risk...