The New York City Council handed Mayor Eric Adams another stinging defeat on Tuesday, overriding Adams’ vetoes of two criminal justice bills that he had opposed with an intense public campaign directed at both councilmembers and New Yorkers.
The two bills, which will now become law, require police officers to disclose and provide demographic information on all investigatory encounters with civilians, and ban solitary confinement in most cases across the city’s jail system.
Adams spent weeks arguing to anyone who would listen that the legislation would make the city less safe by forcing police to spend more time logging data, and — in the case of solitary confinement — by eliminating a practice he said was necessary to subdue violent detainees.
But in the end, a large majority of councilmembers coalesced around the bills, which supporters said were designed to combat a history of racism and abuse by law enforcement officials. The Council voted 42-9 to reject Adams’ vetoes.
After months of intense divisions around city budget cuts and the migrant crisis, Tuesday’s votes reflected the growing power of a progressive Council and the vulnerability of a mayor facing low approval ratings and a federal corruption investigation.
“This is definitely a loss for the mayor and his team,” said Christina Greer, a political science professor currently serving as a fellow at the City College of New York. “You never let the cart get this far down the road and have a potential override of a veto.”
The fight has exposed the increasing political differences between the mayor — a moderate who has staked his mayoralty on lowering crime — and many of his fellow Democrats in the Council, who are advocating for deeper reforms to how the NYPD and larger criminal justice system treat Black and Latino communities.
Among political historians, the tense and sometimes fractious relationship between the two branches of city government has marked a turning point in City Hall.
“The…
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