Mayor Zohran Mamdani has moved swiftly to reshape City Hall, issuing an executive order that revokes all directives signed by former Mayor Eric Adams after September 26, 2024 — the date of Adams’s indictment.
Mamdani framed the move as a defense of working-class New Yorkers, though he did not provide specific examples of policies affected.
Oh, symbolically it’s very powerful. He’s (rightfully) pointing out that Adams should have been removed from office, and that therefore his official acts since are null and void.
But you can run into problems when you blanket reverse orders. Perhaps some of them were normal, necessary, or benign - and you won’t know which is which until you read them. I would honestly rather Mamdani say he’s reversing all of Adams’s orders, but then actually sit down and read all of them and reissue/leave alone any that would cause problems if reversed.
I would imagine he, or members of his staff, did read them all before today, and have a good idea of the contents. I believe he explicitly said he was going to reissue certain ones.
I was trying to research a list of the 9 orders revoked but that is paywalled and the nyc.gov database appears to be missing those issued by Adams.
There’s a little controversy over one of the orders that adopted an unusual definition of antisemitism so I wanted to see what else was repealed.
It’s a strange instinct to think, somehow, this wasn’t the case. In general, not here specifically even. And he especially does not seem like someone who’d just ad hoc do something without knowing what he is doing.