The New York Metropolis Council has a brand new speaker: Julie Menin. In ascending to the speakership, Menin replaces the term-limited Adrienne Adams. She secured a majority of the votes to be able to win her place final November, declaring an extremely early victory within the race. The progressive favourite, Councilmember Crystal Hudson, and different candidates quickly dropped out of the working.
A lot of the council members that supported Menin had been largely average Democrats, Republicans, and pro-Mamdani members. She was elected through the council’s constitution assembly by a bunch of her friends formally on January 7, 2026, and have become the primary Jewish Speaker to steer the town’s legislative physique.
“Phrases really can not describe the great gratitude I really feel for my unbelievable colleagues. I’m humbled by the religion, belief, and confidence you’ve got positioned in me. And I pledge to be a speaker for each single member of this council,” mentioned Menin in her first speech. “I wish to prolong a particular thanks to the members who ran spirited campaigns for speaker — Crystal Hudson, Chris Marte, Selvena Brooks-Powers, and Amanda Farias. You all ran races of integrity, and I sit up for working with you within the coming years.”
Listed below are 5 issues to know concerning the metropolis council chief:
Menin, 58, was elected to the town council in 2022. She represents District 5, which incorporates the Higher East Facet and Roosevelt Island. She spearheaded laws to advance common youngster care, create an Workplace of Healthcare Accountability, create a streamlined net portal for metropolis licenses for small companies, and helped codify the correct to reproductive well being care providers.
Previous to her election, Menin served as the town’s 2020 Census Director. She advocated towards the Trump Administration’s efforts so as to add a citizenship query to the census and pushed the town to complete first amongst all main cities. Due to this effort, the town secured about $1.5 trillion in federal funding over the subsequent decade.
Menin has headed each the NYC Division of Client Affairs (DCA) and the Mayor’s Workplace of Media and Leisure (MOME) as Commissioner previously. Whereas on the DCA, she bolstered small companies, carried out the town’s historic Paid Sick Go away Regulation, and launched a brand new Earned Earnings Tax Credit score initiative. At MOME, Menin labored to herald important TV jobs in movie manufacturing within the metropolis to a file, and launched new packages to extend girls’s illustration within the leisure business. She additionally negotiated a historic deal to convey the Grammy Awards again to New York in 2017, leading to $200 million in income for the town.
Earlier than her life in public service, Menin practiced regulation as a regulatory legal professional at Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C., and because the Senior Regulatory Counsel at Colgate-Palmolive, litigating disputes in state and federal courts. She graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College and obtained her regulation diploma from Northwestern College College of Regulation. She returned as an adjunct professor to her alma mater, educating about metropolis and state authorities. She additionally helped launch She Ought to Run, a nationwide initiative that has inspired 1000’s of girls to run for elected workplace.
Menin’s mom and grandmother survived the Holocaust throughout World Battle II. They hid in a cellar in Hungary. After the conflict ended, the 2 stayed in Hungary solely to need to flee to Czechoslovakia when the Soviets took over. From there, they spent six years dwelling in Sydney, Australia. Decided to stay out the American dream, Menin’s household immigrated to New York Metropolis. They settled right into a rent-controlled condo on the East Facet of Manhattan. A neighborhood generally known as “Little Hungary.” In a full circle second, Menin represents the neighborhood that her mom and grandmother settled in. To honor their wrestle, Menin led an training initiative with the Museum of Jewish Heritage to fight anti-semitism. This system caused 85,000 public and constitution college college students to the museum for Holocaust training experiences.
