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The Post’s exposure of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s weird habit of not bothering to sign bills into law bodes ill for him and for the city.
He’s taken the trouble to sign just one in his first 10 months, vs. 30, 47 and 28 for the last three mayors — and that merely allowed year-round outdoor dining.
Everything else has faced the process known as “returned unsigned,” where bills automatically become law if they sit on his desk unsigned without a veto for four weeks.
Far-left state Sen. Jabari Brisport posted that this is great news: “That’s why he gets done more than other Mayors.”
Gets what done?
Critics suggest Mamdani’s chosen this path because he can’t spare the time — instead, he “and his team are obsessed with becoming a content farm, often delaying or can-kicking boring governmental meetings so the mayor and his staff can hold pitch sessions for social media videos,” as one source who often works with City Hall told The Post.
Indeed, Mamdani’s pumped out video after video — opera-ticket giveaways, fake trash basketball with Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, and on and on — while his staff has also recruited an army of social-media influencers to do the same thing, even as close to a hundred bills languish on his desk.
That comes with a price: The City Council members who worked to pass these laws have to feel dissed — they not only don’t get to bask in a signed ceremony, they must wait a month for their achievements to start kicking in.
That bad blood can easily come back to bite him down the line.
Likewise, this distancing means the mayor hasn’t “taken ownership” of the new laws, something that insiders will surely take into effect — again, with potential grim future consequences.
Most important, the time and energy spent on his TikTok profile isn’t spent on any other work actually governing the city.
“It’s easier to govern by TikTok than to actually perform the duties of the job,” a former City Hall staffer told The Post.
Yes, those of us who think he’s wrong about almost everything see a silver lining there: He’s achieving less, hooray!
But mostly it means he’s leaving governing to henchpeople, from his far-left housing czar, Cea Weaver, who’s waging a war on landlords, to his hack of a chancellor, Kamar Samuels, who’s “leading” a continued collapse of the public schools — and he’ll still end up owning the results.
Worst of all, it means he’s not really learning how city government works, nor how to make it work, nor even how to lead the general public rather than simply entertain it.
This invites disaster in a crisis, and almost every mayor faces a few, from Giuliani and 9/11 to de Blasio and COVID to Adams and the migrant mess.
No matter how much you’d rather seek buzz, Mr. Mayor, the buck eventually stops with you.