In a last-ditch attempt to impose his influence and policy preferences on New York City and a new crop of City Hall leaders, Eric Adams used his final hours as mayor last month to veto 19 bills the City Council had passed.
But any impact he had hoped to achieve was both limited and short-lived: On Thursday, the City Council is expected to override 17 of the former mayor’s vetoes — more overrides than in the last 10 years combined, according to Council officials.
The move is a sweeping rebuke of Mr. Adams’s leadership, and a demonstration that the newly formulated Council — which includes 11 new members and a new speaker — is more aligned with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda. Some of the bills target housing costs and offer increased protections for street vendors and for-hire drivers.
One of the more noteworthy bills is named after Aland Etienne, the security officer who was murdered in the July 2025 shooting at a Manhattan office building, and will guarantee a minimum wage, paid vacation and holidays and supplemental benefits for private-sector security officers who are not employed through a city contract. It creates the first minimum wage standard for private sector employees in more than 60 years, according to the union representing building service workers.
“At a moment when the federal government has taken away health benefits and support for working and poor people to fund the biggest tax break for the rich in history, this legislation will be life-changing for tens of thousands of hardworking New Yorkers,” said Manny Pastreich, the president of the union, 32BJ SEIU.
Another bill will lift the cap on permits and licenses for the city’s more than 20,000 street vendors, offering an economic lifeline to a portion of New York’s work force that is made up largely of immigrants. Councilwoman Pierina Ana Sanchez, a Democrat from the Bronx who sponsored the legislation, said it could bring more predictability to the days of the city’s street vendors.
“Yes, you’re waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. to go sell your wares,” she said of the vendors, “but no longer will you have to worry or wonder if this is going to be the day where somebody successfully calls Sanitation or some other enforcement on you because you don’t have a license and you broke a rule inadvertently.”
One of the vetoes that the Council will not override is that of the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA, which would allow some nonprofit groups a 25-day head start to purchase residential buildings in severe disrepair. As a candidate, Mr. Mamdani endorsed the legislation and lobbied City Council members to push it through. The Law Department, in its role as an adviser to the Council, has since issued a risk assessment on behalf of the Council, raising some concerns about the bill’s constitutionality.
But Councilwoman Sandy Nurse, the Brooklyn Democrat who sponsored the bill, said the overall message from the department was one of support.
“The city Law Department told me verbatim: The law is defensible as is,” she said. “That is why the mayor supported the override beyond being supportive of COPA as a critical, strategic tool to preserve affordable housing and keep working families here.”
Julie Menin, the Council speaker, said that only bills that passed with a supermajority will be brought forth for a veto-override vote on Thursday. COPA passed with only a narrow margin of support.
“It didn’t have that supermajority; that was obviously a concern,” said Ms. Menin, a Democrat from Manhattan. “And then, in speaking with all of the members, it did not have a supermajority of support now.” She added that she was “always open to working with the bill’s sponsor to discuss next steps.”
In vetoing the bills, Mr. Adams argued that they would add another layer of bureaucracy to already complicated processes, while having no practical effect on solving the city’s affordability crisis. Still, most of the bills initially passed with overwhelming support from the City Council, making the mayor’s vetoes one of the last flashpoints in a tense relationship between the mayor and the legislative body.
Todd Shapiro, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said in a statement that the overrides fall within the City Council’s legal authority, as does the mayor’s right to veto bills.
“While Mayor Adams disagrees with the decision to override his vetoes, he respects the City Charter that grants both powers,” he said.
Maya King is a Times reporter covering New York politics.
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