Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at the Democratic Socialists of America in New York and what the organization’s next moves might be.
Increasing taxes on the rich. Limiting aid to Israel through state legislation. And taking over New York’s largest utility company. Those are some of the ambitious ideas that leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America have begun to discuss as they hash out their policy agenda for New York, propelled by a string of electoral victories last month that have emboldened their movement. After catapulting Zohran Mamdani to City Hall last year, the D.S.A. flexed its growing influence in June by defeating two Democratic incumbents in House primaries and making inroads in state legislative races. But translating the organization’s recent electoral successes into policy will be easier said than done, as my colleagues Emma Goldberg and Sally Goldenberg reported in an article on Sunday that explored the D.S.A.’s next moves in New York. Many of the D.S.A.’s favored policies would have to be passed by the State Legislature and approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has acted as a centrist bulwark against tax increases and other left-wing policies. The D.S.A., aware that pushing Hochul to the left as she runs for re-election this year against a Republican would be an uphill battle, is instead preparing to escalate pressure on the governor when lawmakers return to Albany in January, my colleagues reported. The D.S.A. chapter in New York City said it had almost doubled its membership in New York City to roughly 15,000 faithful since Mamdani’s victory in the mayoral primary last year. And the organization is expected to have at least 15 legislators who identify as democratic socialists across both chambers in Albany next year, its largest voting bloc since its first member won a seat in the State Senate in 2018 — but still a small faction in the 213-seat body. “We brought the fight to Hochul to tax the rich last session when we had only nine socialists in the State Legislature,” Gustavo Gordillo, a co-leader of New York City’s D.S.A. chapter, told Emma and Sally. “This cycle, our forces will be almost doubled, and there’s a whole new crew of progressive legislators who are going to demand what New Yorkers want, which is for Hochul to tax the rich.” Hochul has already teamed up with Mamdani on some initiatives championed by the left, including a tax on high-priced second homes in the city and plans to expand free and low-cost child care statewide. But the D.S.A. is likely to confront opposition from Hochul and other moderate factions in Albany when it comes to the most expansive and potentially divisive planks of the policy agenda, which the organization’s leaders began to hash out in a video call this month. Members of the D.S.A. are planning to renew a push to pass a state bill that would strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status if their funds are used to support Israeli settlement activity. And they have discussed plans to introduce a bill that would penalize airlines that facilitate arms shipments to Israel from Kennedy Airport. The D.S.A. is also part of a coalition pushing the state to build enough public renewable energy to power 12 million households. Members of the coalition have floated a state or city takeover of Con Edison, arguing that the public sector should run the grid to reduce utility bills. As for taxes, the D.S.A. is hoping to pitch an increase in the income taxes of wealthy New Yorkers as the only way to fund the multibillion-dollar child care initiatives that Hochul has already embraced. In private, some D.S.A. members have wondered whether Mamdani, having struck a largely conciliatory partnership with Hochul, could play a more active role in pushing the governor, Emma and Sally wrote. Anthony Hogrebe, a spokesman for the governor, said, “She does not believe in raising taxes for the sake of raising taxes, and has only considered new revenue raisers when absolutely needed to solve real problems.” The D.S.A. might find some reason for hope: Another governor who cast himself as a fiscal moderate, Andrew M. Cuomo, increased income taxes on the wealthy to address a post-recession shortfall in 2011 and later in 2021, under pressure from progressives in the State Legislature. WEATHER Today will be increasingly cloudy with a high near 83. There will be a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low around 70. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 15 (Feast of the Assumption). QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s déjà vu all over again.” — Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, on her skepticism of a new ride-share contender’s claims about driver benefits, recalling a time when Uber and Lyft offered similar enticements to lure drivers away from yellow cabs. The latest Metro news
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Dear Diary: When I learned the Stephen Sondheim song “What More Do I Need?,” I marveled at the lines “My windowpane has a lovely view/ an inch of sky and a fly or two/ why I can see half a tree/ And what more do I need?” There’s nothing like a New York apartment to make you wish you could sit down with Sondheim and add a verse. When I was in my early 20s, a suburban girl new to New York, in love with musicals and the city itself, I was full of hope and possibility. So I thought nothing of wandering into West Village apartment buildings and asking about vacancies. The bureaucratic barriers designed to make this impossible meant nothing. I just asked. One day the doorman at a building I loved said there was a studio open. “The man who rented it,” he explained, and then paused, “is missing.” The apartment was tiny but charming. It was also full of the missing tenant’s belongings: a tattered sofa bed, clothes in the closet, a little coffee maker, turquoise towels and an ottoman emblazoned with the Baltimore Orioles logo. It was as if he had simply stepped out one day in the middle of his life. I took it immediately, but somehow it still felt like his. I kept everything as it was in case he ever came back. He was my invisible roommate. Time passed. I fell in love and needed a bigger place. One day in the elevator, a neighbor turned to me. “My husband has left me,” she said. “I can’t afford my apartment.” “Why don’t we swap?” I said. We shook hands, and the next day she inherited my studio, and my invisible roommate. I don’t know if he ever returned, but in a sense, he never left. — Melissa Errico Ms. Errico, an actress and singer, will perform in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and Provincetown, Mass., in August. Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
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