Adams’ Midnight Power Play: NYC’s Socialist Mayor Faces Insider Commission

Paul Riverbank, 1/1/2026Mayor Adams’ midnight commission sparks clash with NYC’s new socialist mayor over primary reforms.

Gone was any trace of sentimentality. Typical Adams, really. He had one parting play to run before he left. Hours before handing over the keys to City Hall, he delivered a bureaucratic curveball—a freshly minted Charter Revision Commission. The announcement landed just before the witching hour, the names on the list sparking more whispers than applause. Marty Connor—a sharp-elbowed operator from the thick of election law—set to chair. Robert Tucker and Kayla Mamelak, tried-and-true Adams confidantes, in the mix. Several recipients, it turns out, learned of their appointments as the public did.

The city was already turning its eyes toward a new chapter and a much younger face waiting in the wings. Yet, Adams couldn’t resist reshaping the board just before the final buzzer, a move that left even longtime City Hall watchers shaking their heads. The heart of the matter? The commission was tasked with a potentially seismic question: Should New York crack open its closed primary system, letting over a million unaffiliated voters—people who pay city taxes, pack the trains, help shoulder the city’s burdens—finally see their ballots count in the crucial first round?

Adams, in his trademark blend of candor and campaign-speak, called it “historic”—a chance for trailblazers from each borough to chart a more inclusive democracy. On paper, that might ring true. But timing, as always, is the subtext. The outgoing Council Speaker, Adrienne Adams (no relation), publicly skewered the maneuver, seeing in it a last-ditch effort by the mayor to cement his imprint and sidestep proper checks, another instance of Adams moving the goalposts in the final stretch.

There’s more under the hood—whispers that the commission might dig into sanctuary city protections, although the immediate focus remains the city’s suffocatingly tight primaries. And now, the fate of whatever this commission proposes belongs, at least in part, to Zohran Mamdani, who stepped onto the stage at midnight the way only a New York story can deliver: in a now-retired subway station, nothing remotely ceremonial in sight. At just 34, Mamdani brings a radically different voice—openly socialist, the city’s first Muslim mayor, choosing to swear his oath on the Quran instead of a Bible, a nod to the pluralism New York sometimes claims and sometimes resists.

For all the symbolic handoff, Mamdani faces the concrete reality that he can’t simply sweep Adams’ commission away. What he can do—quietly, lethally bureaucratic—is to strip away its funding, rendering it about as powerful as an unplugged microphone. “He could make it all but irrelevant,” one weary City Hall veteran admitted, a hint of both resignation and amusement in their voice. These late-night chess maneuvers are nothing new in this city—if anything, they’re tradition.

While reformers like Citizens Union have campaigned for years for open primaries, even they can’t quite embrace Adams’ timing or the slate. Are these truly fresh perspectives? Or just the usual insiders, a familiar deck reshuffled to look new? Either way, the doors to meaningful change are now squarely Mamdani’s to open or bolt shut.

On his way out, Adams quipped about lighting a cigar and taking a long pull of Scotch. Then, just like that, the city braced for what stories might come next: this new commission could spark a citywide fight about democracy—or dissolve into the ether, another plan lost beneath City Hall’s humming lights. Adams himself, looking back, once summed up his improbable arc: “Arrested, rejected, and now I’m elected.” A fitting coda—succinct, a little raw, unapologetic. If New York’s political mugs could talk, maybe they’d say the same.

If you wanted a grand farewell from Eric Adams on his last day as mayor of New York City, you were out of luck. The man who spent his four years taking pride in walking the city’s news cycle into the gray of dawn opted out of any parades or ticker-tape fanfare. Instead, there he was—broadcasting from somewhere behind his desk, a steaming mug in his grip, a few battered soundbites at the ready. Mug emblazoned with quotes that could double as punchlines for a late-night monologue: “I wake up in the morning sometimes and look at myself and give myself the finger,” he barked, before cracking up. He read off another: “Stay focused, no distractions, and grind.” And, his preferred refrain as he wrangled with social media and subway brawls alike, “It’s not what’s in the tweet, it’s what’s in the streets.”Gone was any trace of sentimentality. Typical Adams, really. He had one parting play to run before he left. Hours before handing over the keys to City Hall, he delivered a bureaucratic curveball—a freshly minted Charter Revision Commission. The announcement landed just before the witching hour, the names on the list sparking more whispers than applause. Marty Connor—a sharp-elbowed operator from the thick of election law—set to chair. Robert Tucker and Kayla Mamelak, tried-and-true Adams confidantes, in the mix. Several recipients, it turns out, learned of their appointments as the public did.The city was already turning its eyes toward a new chapter and a much younger face waiting in the wings. Yet, Adams couldn’t resist reshaping the board just before the final buzzer, a move that left even longtime City Hall watchers shaking their heads. The heart of the matter? The commission was tasked with a potentially seismic question: Should New York crack open its closed primary system, letting over a million unaffiliated voters—people who pay city taxes, pack the trains, help shoulder the city’s burdens—finally see their ballots count in the crucial first round?Adams, in his trademark blend of candor and campaign-speak, called it “historic”—a chance for trailblazers from each borough to chart a more inclusive democracy. On paper, that might ring true. But timing, as always, is the subtext. The outgoing Council Speaker, Adrienne Adams (no relation), publicly skewered the maneuver, seeing in it a last-ditch effort by the mayor to cement his imprint and sidestep proper checks, another instance of Adams moving the goalposts in the final stretch.There’s more under the hood—whispers that the commission might dig into sanctuary city protections, although the immediate focus remains the city’s suffocatingly tight primaries. And now, the fate of whatever this commission proposes belongs, at least in part, to Zohran Mamdani, who stepped onto the stage at midnight the way only a New York story can deliver: in a now-retired subway station, nothing remotely ceremonial in sight. At just 34, Mamdani brings a radically different voice—openly socialist, the city’s first Muslim mayor, choosing to swear his oath on the Quran instead of a Bible, a nod to the pluralism New York sometimes claims and sometimes resists.For all the symbolic handoff, Mamdani faces the concrete reality that he can’t simply sweep Adams’ commission away. What he can do—quietly, lethally bureaucratic—is to strip away its funding, rendering it about as powerful as an unplugged microphone. “He could make it all but irrelevant,” one weary City Hall veteran admitted, a hint of both resignation and amusement in their voice. These late-night chess maneuvers are nothing new in this city—if anything, they’re tradition.While reformers like Citizens Union have campaigned for years for open primaries, even they can’t quite embrace Adams’ timing or the slate. Are these truly fresh perspectives? Or just the usual insiders, a familiar deck reshuffled to look new? Either way, the doors to meaningful change are now squarely Mamdani’s to open or bolt shut.On his way out, Adams quipped about lighting a cigar and taking a long pull of Scotch. Then, just like that, the city braced for what stories might come next: this new commission could spark a citywide fight about democracy—or dissolve into the ether, another plan lost beneath City Hall’s humming lights. Adams himself, looking back, once summed up his improbable arc: “Arrested, rejected, and now I’m elected.” A fitting coda—succinct, a little raw, unapologetic. If New York’s political mugs could talk, maybe they’d say the same.