The New York Metropolis Council on Thursday voted to override 17 vetoes that former Mayor Eric Adams issued on his final day of workplace, Dec. 31, 2025.
The lawmakers reinstated a broad package deal of laws, handed with supermajority, veto-proof assist in late 2025, addressing points akin to housing affordability, employee protections, road merchandising reform, authorities accountability and survivor justice. Three further vetoes weren’t overridden and can stand, after failing to achieve the two-thirds threshold required underneath the Metropolis Constitution on Thursday.
Speaker Julie Menin mentioned the vote marked a traditionally important assertion of the Council’s authority, noting that lawmakers overturned extra mayoral vetoes in a single day than that they had over the previous decade mixed.
Menin mentioned the overridden payments mirrored laws that had broad assist throughout the Council. “These overrides reflect legislation that has been debated, thoroughly, refined, carefully and supported by a clear super majority of elected representatives from across the city,” she mentioned. “When the council acts with that level of consensus, we have an obligation to follow through.”
The revived laws contains payments increasing entry to inexpensive housing and homeownership, reforming the town’s decades-old street-vending system, offering new due-process protections for app-based drivers, strengthening pay and advantages for safety guards, reforming metropolis procurement practices, and restoring a authorized framework that enables survivors of gender-motivated violence to pursue civil claims.
Throughout Thursday’s Acknowledged assembly, all 17 veto overrides handed with a minimum of the two-thirds, although Intro 431-B (road merchandising reform increasing licenses), Intro 570-B (establishing a metropolis land financial institution for tax-delinquent properties), Intro 1420-A (requiring lien purchasers to aim transferring liens to the land financial institution), and Intro 1251-A (guaranteeing further vendor license functions are issued as licensed) acquired the narrowest margins of assist.
Menin mentioned the Council didn’t try to override each veto that failed to fulfill the two-thirds threshold, however that there may nonetheless be a path ahead for the payments that weren’t revived.
“Overrides require a super majority, and when that threshold was not met, the council is respecting the process, because that is how responsible governance works,” she mentioned.
Amongst these measures that won’t grow to be legislation is the Group Alternative to Buy Act, or COPA, which might have given nonprofit housing teams the proper of first refusal to purchase distressed residence buildings.
Lawmakers additionally declined to override vetoes of a invoice requiring a minimal share of newly constructed, city-financed inexpensive housing to incorporate two- and three-bedroom items, and laws granting the Civilian Grievance Evaluate Board direct entry to NYPD body-camera footage relatively than requiring the company to acquire it by way of the division.
Avenue merchandising reform
A number of of the veto overrides centered on road merchandising, a problem formed for many years by restrictive license caps and uneven enforcement.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams mentioned his laws making a Division of Avenue Vendor Help inside the Division of Small Enterprise Providers had been vetoed “without any real justification.”
“Street vendors are New York City’s smallest businesses and provide some of the most affordable options for New Yorkers facing an increasingly unaffordable city,” Williams mentioned. “This will give street vendors access to many of the same tools afforded to other small businesses.”
Jumaane Williams celebrates the Council’s veto override, giving NYC road distributors long-awaited assist.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Council Member Pierina Sanchez (D-Bronx), who sponsored the principle merchandising reform invoice, mentioned the package deal is designed to convey current distributors into compliance relatively than increase merchandising exercise.
“Seventy percent of street vendors who are vending food are unlicensed,” Sanchez mentioned. “We are talking about bringing those vendors, existing vendors, into compliance. We’re not talking about more vending.”
Sanchez mentioned the laws replaces “decades of dysfunction” by pairing expanded entry to licenses with stronger enforcement, training and oversight.
Employee protections
The Council additionally overrode Adams’ veto of laws stopping high-volume for-hire car providers akin to Uber and Lyft from deactivating drivers with out simply trigger.
Council Member Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) described the override as a nationwide milestone for app-based staff.
“Today, we are righting that wrong and overturning his anti-immigrant, anti-worker veto,” Krishnan mentioned. “My legislation to end the unfair firings of Uber and Lyft drivers is the largest due process protection for these workers in the nation.”
Krishnan mentioned drivers can at present lose entry to work with out warning or rationalization.
“They can look down at their phone and see they’ve been deactivated or fired from the app with no notice or no process whatsoever,” he mentioned. “But that changes.”
The Council additionally revived the Aland Etienne Security and Safety Act, which requires sure safety guard employers to offer minimal wage, paid trip time and supplemental advantages. Menin mentioned the invoice honors Etienne, a safety guard killed whereas on responsibility.
“He was a hero,” Menin mentioned. “And this bill honors that fact, and it honors the fact that our security guards are on the front lines doing such important work.”
Survivor justice and housing; procurement reform
Survivors can’t afford ambiguity within the legislation,’ says Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers because the Council overrides Adams’ veto to guard survivor rightsPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell
Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens) mentioned the override of her invoice amending the Gender-Motivated Violence Act restores readability after court docket rulings threatened survivor lawsuits.
“Survivors cannot afford ambiguity in the law,” Brooks-Powers mentioned. “And they certainly cannot afford silence when their rights are threatened.”
Housing-related overrides additionally included laws establishing a metropolis land financial institution to handle tax-delinquent properties and reforms requiring cooperative boards to observe clear timelines when reviewing residence sale functions.
Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) mentioned the land financial institution laws replaces a non-public tax-lien system with a public, nonprofit method.
“This land bank bill replaces New York’s private sector-driven high bidder tax lien sales with a public, focused, nonprofit approach,” Brewer mentioned.
The Council additionally revived procurement reform laws requiring metropolis contractors to establish and disclose conflicts of curiosity and misconduct.
Council Member Julie Received mentioned the invoice was drafted in response to repeated contracting scandals.
“When this bill is enacted, with the override of this veto, it applies to contracts that are valued at $100,000 or more,” Received mentioned, including that contractors could be required to certify compliance and report conflicts throughout the lifetime of a contract.
