Zohran Mamdani Appoints Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice, Pledges to Govern New York City as a Socialist

Mayor Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor and the youngest in over a century when he was sworn in using a Quran. He used his inauguration to affirm he will govern as a democratic socialist, speaking before thousands outside City Hall alongside Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Mamdani pledged to focus his administration on working-class New Yorkers and said he would not abandon his principles despite criticism, framing New York as a proving ground for democratic socialist governance with an agenda centered on safety, affordability, and expanded public services funded by higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

It is ironic that he claims to help the working class by raising taxes. He also says he is focused on public safety, even as he has opposed policing and the incarceration of convicted criminals.

Mamdani began his first day by signing five executive orders. The first repealed all executive actions issued by former Mayor Eric Adams after Adams was federally indicted. The second appointed his five deputy mayors, establishing his democratic socialist administration.

For first deputy mayor, he chose Dean Fuleihan, 74, a Lebanese American who previously served as first deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio. Fuleihan oversaw the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars in city funds to Universal Pre-K and early childhood education, significantly expanding pre-kindergarten access across New York City. To fund these social programs, the city budget grew from $72 billion to $85 billion, supporting affordable housing initiatives and other social equity programs.

The new deputy mayor for housing and planning is Leila Bozorg, who previously served as Eric Adams’s executive director of housing and played a key role in negotiating the City of Yes housing rezoning policy.

The initiative includes $5 billion in total investment, with $1 billion from state funding and $1 billion from the city allocated for housing capital. Key components include the Universal Affordability Preference, which provides a 20 percent density bonus for projects that dedicate additional space to permanently affordable housing for households earning 60 percent of the Area Median Income.

The program permits three- to five-story apartment buildings in low-density residential districts near public transit, while requiring that at least 20 percent of units in developments with 50 or more apartments be permanently affordable.

Julie Su, who served as acting U.S. Labor Secretary under Biden and California’s labor secretary from 2019-2021 but was not confirmed by the Senate despite two attempts, became Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice in a newly created role. Helen Arteaga Landaverde, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst and the first Latina to serve as CEO of Elmhurst Hospital, became Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

Julia Kerson, previously deputy director of infrastructure under Governor Hochul and a former MTA vice president, became Deputy Mayor for Operations.

Mamdani appointed Ramzi Kassem as chief counsel. Kassem has defended multiple Al Qaeda members, including Ahmed al-Darbi, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to involvement in a 2002 Al Qaeda plot to bomb a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, and Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, who was allegedly involved in providing assistance for the September 11 attacks and was held at Guantánamo Bay for nearly 20 years. Al-Darbi’s brother-in-law was Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.

Kassem founded CLEAR at the CUNY School of Law in 2009 to provide free legal services to Muslims accused of terrorism-related offenses and has represented at least 15 detainees held at Guantánamo Bay.

The remaining three executive orders focused on housing. Mamdani created two task forces, LIFT and SPEED, to accelerate housing construction including development on city-owned land beginning July 1. He restored the Office to Protect Tenants and appointed housing advocate Cea Weaver to lead it, pledging stricter enforcement of housing code violations and increased accountability for landlords.

Mamdani signed the orders inside a Pinnacle-owned building in Crown Heights, part of a troubled property portfolio now under city intervention as it moves through bankruptcy proceedings. The rent-stabilized buildings contain more than 5,000 hazardous violations and 14,000 tenant complaints. Tenants expressed hope that city involvement would lead to safer living conditions and an end to chronic neglect.

Rent-stabilized apartments illustrate the structural problems of socialist housing policy. Landlords are forced to rent units below market rates while remaining legally responsible for maintenance, even as operating costs rise far faster than the roughly 3 to 4 percent annual rent caps. This dynamic discourages investment in upkeep and effectively imposes a government-mandated discount on private property owners, functioning as a wealth transfer from landlords to tenants.

Pinnacle’s strategy was to allow buildings to deteriorate until tenants left voluntarily, after which units could be renovated and converted into luxury condominiums for market-rate sale. The company later entered bankruptcy proceedings because maintaining buildings while collecting only a fraction of market rent proved financially unsustainable.

Mamdani said the city will intervene to ensure repairs are completed and that tenants are not displaced, a promise that can realistically be fulfilled only through additional public spending. He also pledged to freeze rents for rent-stabilized tenants for four years, affecting more than 2 million tenants citywide. In effect, Mamdani is promising to transfer more wealth from working people to fund government programs while expanding rent control in a way that perpetuates the same problems of deferred maintenance and unsafe living conditions.

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