One Bill in Ten Months: Mamdani’s City Hall Accused of Chasing Videos Over Governing
When New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York City in 2025, they chose a self-described Democratic Socialist, the first modern elected politician after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to embrace the label. Now, nearly a year into his term, critics are asking what he has actually accomplished.
The answer appears to be very little. In 10 months running America’s largest city, Mamdani has signed exactly one bill into law, a measure allowing New York City restaurants to offer sidewalk dining year-round. According to critics, much of the rest of his time has gone into making TikTok videos.
A former City Hall staffer summed up the approach this way: “It’s easier to govern by TikTok than to actually perform the duties of the job.” A City Hall insider who spoke to the New York Post called the pattern “lazy in two ways,” saying it is easier to do nothing than to take a stand, and that staff cannot be focused on holding hearings, writing briefings, and carrying out bill signings.
Another insider described a team “obsessed with becoming a content farm,” saying routine government meetings are often delayed or pushed off so the mayor and his staff can hold pitch sessions for social media videos. “The mayor gets pitched comedy sketches more than Lorne Michaels,” the insider said, adding that there are lots of laughs and very little work.
New laws have still taken effect during his tenure. Nearly all of the roughly 100 bills left unsigned on Mamdani’s desk became law through a process known as “returned unsigned,” under which a bill passed by the City Council is automatically enacted if the mayor does not veto it within four weeks.
Among the measures Mamdani left unsigned were requirements for wellness checks on elderly residents when temperatures climb above 95 degrees, and an expansion of free childcare programs, one of his own campaign promises. Meanwhile, he found time for an April 15 Tax Day “Tax the rich” video about pied-a-terre properties, and for calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” while exploring ways the NYPD could arrest him during U.N. General Assembly week in September.
On Thursday, Mamdani brushed off the criticism over having signed just one bill.
On Friday, he posted a Spanish-language video on X coaching illegal immigrants in New York on what to say and do if ICE agents come to their door.
His predecessors had a far busier record at the same point in their terms. Former Mayor Eric Adams had signed 30 bills into law by this stage, Bill de Blasio 47, and Mike Bloomberg 28.
