If Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor and implements the changes he promises, expect the city’s financial condition and public safety to deteriorate rapidly.
Think criminal bedlam, antisemitic rioters allowed full rein and cutbacks to basic city services.
In such a crisis, desperate New Yorkers will look to Albany — because under state law, the governor has virtually unlimited power to curb the mayor’s authority, or even remove him, even if no crime has been committed.
It’s a safety valve, if a governor has enough backbone to use it.
The law requires the governor to present grievances against the mayor at a formal hearing before actually removing him from office.
Even so, the governor’s decision is final, not subject to review by any court. The New York State Supreme Court calls it “the naked power of removal.”
In the event a mayor is removed, a special election must be held within 80 days. Until then, the Public Advocate acts as mayor.
The question is: Would Gov. Kathy Hochul have the guts to use her authority to protect the city, or would she sacrifice New Yorkers by pandering to the socialist flank of her party?
Expect this to be a major issue in the 2026 gubernatorial election, when a Republican contender is likely to insist on an answer.
Right now, Hochul is cozying up to Mamdani, praising him as “eminently reasonable” and hinting she’ll find $10 billion in the state budget to fund his long list of promised freebies.
That’s happy talk.
The state faces a $10 billion annual deficit itself, and Budget Director Blake Washington is calling for belt-tightening across the board.
And why should the rest of the state pick up the tab for city voters’ poor decisions?
Mamdani has promised to close Rikers Island, dumping thousands of violent inmates on the streets.
Meanwhile, cops will be quitting in droves, former NYPD Commissioners Bill Bratton and Ray Kelly predict.
While crime spikes, fiscal mismanagement will force the city to curtail essential services like sanitation and what’s left of police protection.
Mamdani is promising $6 billion a year in child care and $652 million a year in free bus service — yet the city is already facing a $17.1 billion deficit during what would be Mamdani’s first three years at City Hall without the added fairytale freebies, says state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
For half a century, ever since New York City’s financial debacle in 1975, New Yorkers have taken comfort in knowing that a state-run Financial Control Board is in place to prevent the city from overspending and plunging into financial ruin.
But the guardrails have turned into tissue paper under Albany’s one-party rule.
Reactivating the Financial Control Board requires the consent of the Legislature.
Good luck. The top legislative leaders, all Democrats, have endorsed Mamdani.
So at this point there is nothing to prevent the city from going bankrupt or spiraling into criminal chaos — except a governor’s constitutional removal power.
That power was invoked in 1932, when then-Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called for a hearing to remove New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall Mayor Jimmy Walker.
Walker challenged FDR’s effort in court, and lost.
The court ruled that the governor’s authority is “unlimited.” It is the “naked power of removal” under the state Constitution, the judges said.
The case was so open-and-shut that Walker didn’t bother to appeal. Seeing he was about to be ousted, he resigned and fled to Europe.
Several recent governors have cited the law without actually following through.
In 2020, when Mayor Bill de Blasio allowed anti-police rioters to take over the streets, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, “Technically the governor could remove the mayor” — but added he wasn’t ready to take that step.
Hochul herself considered using the removal power following the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams.
Michigan and Florida also empower their governors to remove mayors for negligence or improper governance, not just illegal acts.
Ousting a democratically elected official is serious business, but almost every state has some constitutional mechanism to remove an incompetent or unfit mayor.
Some states prefer recall, and others empower the legislature to make the decision.
As long as removal is followed promptly by another election, voters have the ultimate say.
Citizens Union, a nonpartisan NYC good-government group, sees the “potential democratic harm of ousting a duly elected official who represents over 8 million people,” but concludes that a governor’s removal power is essential.
The organization proposes an amendment guaranteeing that the mayor has a due process right to be heard, and that the hearing occur within seven days.
Even so, the final decision would still belong to the governor.
The Democratic Party in New York has been hijacked by the Democratic Socialists of America, largely with out-of state money and manpower.
Mamdani’s extreme anti-capitalist, anti-cop and antisemitic promises, if implemented, threaten the survival of the city’s economy and the safety of its residents, particularly Jewish New Yorkers.
The governor’s removal power was created for such rare circumstances.
It’s vital that Hochul — or her successor — has the courage to use it when the need arises.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of SAVENYC.org.