Politics in New York City is usually a contact sport, but what happened with the Eric Adams ballot measures over the last couple of years felt more like a chess match played with a sledgehammer. Most people walking into a voting booth see a paragraph of legalese and think, "Sure, cleaner streets sound good," or "Yeah, let's have more fiscal responsibility." But if you’ve been paying attention to the basement-level bickering between City Hall and the City Council, you know those lines on the back of your ballot were actually tactical strikes in a massive power struggle.
It's kinda wild how much a few sentences of "Charter Revision" can actually change who runs your neighborhood.
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Basically, Mayor Eric Adams used a tool called the Charter Revision Commission. It sounds dry, right? It’s not. It is a "get out of jail free" card for a Mayor who wants to bypass the City Council. By convening this commission, Adams was able to put his own proposals directly to the voters, effectively bumping other measures the Council wanted off the ballot. It was a move that left Speaker Adrienne Adams and her colleagues absolutely fuming.
The 2024 Proposals: More Than Just "Clean Streets"
In November 2024, voters were handed five specific city-level proposals (Proposals 2 through 6). While Proposal 1 was a statewide thing about equal rights, the rest were pure Eric Adams.
The one everyone liked was Proposal 2. It was marketed as the "War on Rats." It gave the Department of Sanitation more power to mandate containers and clean up city parks. Simple enough. But the real friction was in the "fine print" of the others:
- Proposal 3 (Fiscal Analysis): This required the City Council to get a fiscal impact statement before even holding a hearing on a bill. Critics called it a "bureaucracy bomb" designed to slow down the Council’s ability to pass laws the Mayor didn't like.
- Proposal 4 (Public Safety Notice): This was the big one. It forced the Council to give 30 days' notice before voting on anything related to the NYPD, FDNY, or Corrections. It basically gave the Mayor a month-long window to campaign against any police reform the Council tried to pass.
- Proposal 5 (Capital Planning): This sounds like boring infrastructure stuff, but it changed how the city reports on the state of its buildings. The Council argued it was a "meaningless" change that ignored actual reform.
You’ve gotta admit, it's a clever way to play the game. By the time the results rolled in, most of these passed. New Yorkers saw "Clean Streets" and "Public Safety" and hit "Yes."
The 2025 Escalation: The Housing Power Grab
If 2024 was a skirmish, 2025 was the full-scale invasion. As the city’s housing crisis reached a fever pitch, Adams went back to the well. This time, the Eric Adams ballot measures were aimed directly at the Council’s "member deference"—the unwritten rule that local council members get the final say on developments in their own backyard.
One of the most controversial 2025 proposals sought to create a "fast-track" review for affordable housing. On the surface, who wouldn't want faster housing? But the "gotcha" was that it would essentially cut the City Council out of the loop. It proposed a three-person appeals board—made up of the Mayor, the Council Speaker, and the relevant Borough President—that could overrule a Council rejection.
Since the Mayor usually has the political leverage or the tie-breaking influence, this was seen as a way to hand the keys of the city over to developers and the executive branch.
Why This Actually Matters for Your Rent and Your Street
The City Council isn't perfect, but they are the ones you can actually reach on the phone. When a developer wants to put a 40-story luxury tower in a neighborhood with overcrowded schools, the local Council member is usually the only person standing in the way to demand "community benefits"—like a new playground or actual deeply affordable units.
By shifting power through these Eric Adams ballot measures, the city moves toward a "top-down" style of management.
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- Speed vs. Voice: The Mayor argues the city moves too slow. He’s right. It takes years to build anything.
- Accountability: The Council argues that without their vote, there's no way to force developers to build for the people already living there.
- The "Shadow" Charter: Because these changes are now baked into the City Charter (the city's constitution), they don't just go away when Eric Adams leaves office. They are the new rules for whoever comes next.
What Most People Get Wrong
People often think these measures are about the specific topic on the label—garbage, police, or housing. Honestly, they’re about the balance of power.
If you look at the 2025 legal challenges, the City Council leadership actually tried to get the Board of Elections to block the measures. They argued the language was "deceptive" because it didn't tell voters they were voting to give up their own representatives' power. They lost that fight. The courts generally let the Mayor put whatever he wants on there as long as the summary isn't an outright lie.
It’s a reminder that in NYC, the most important part of the ballot is often the part you have to flip the paper over to find.
Actionable Steps for the Next Election Cycle
It's easy to feel like this is all over your head, but these charter changes are permanent. If you want to stay ahead of the next round of "surprises," here is how you actually handle it.
Don't wait for the voting booth to read the summaries. The language on the ballot is written by the people who want the measures to pass. It is almost always biased. About a month before any general election, "Good Government" groups like Citizens Union or the League of Women Voters release "Pro/Con" guides. Read those instead. They’ll tell you exactly who is funding the "Yes" campaign and what the "No" side is afraid of.
Track the Charter Revision Commission. These commissions aren't permanent. They are "called" by the Mayor. If you hear the Mayor is "convening a Charter Revision Commission," that is your signal that a power shift is coming. That is the time to attend public hearings or call your Council member. Once the measures are on the ballot, the momentum is usually too hard to stop.
Look for the "Financial Impact." Whenever you see a measure that mentions "fiscal analysis" or "budget deadlines," it’s usually a move to restrict how the city's money is spent or how much oversight the public has over the Mayor’s budget. New York's budget is nearly $112 billion—even a "small" change in a deadline can hide billions in cuts or spending from public view until it's too late to protest.