Last week, after months of backroom intrigue, the New York City Council selected its next speaker. A council member from Queens, Adrienne Adams, announced she had the majority of votes needed to lead the body. She will be confirmed when the new legislature meets in January.

Adrienne Adams (of no relation to the incoming mayor, Eric Adams) was an unlikely choice. She had never been regarded as a front-runner for the position; until recently she was mostly an afterthought among her colleagues. She will be the first speaker in twenty years to not come from Manhattan. Before her ascension to the city’s second most powerful elected position, which negotiates the $90 billion municipal budget with the mayor, she was not known for shepherding significant pieces of legislation or harboring aspirations of higher office.

Ironically, it was the victory of Adrienne Adams that signaled the first political defeat of the coming Eric Adams mayoralty. Despite what the two Democrats have in common — they are both black, are the same age, and attended the same Queens high school — Adrienne Adams was not the future mayor’s first pick for speaker. Instead, Eric Adams openly preferred another top candidate, Francisco Moya, deputizing his aides to whip votes behind the scenes and even threaten members who wouldn’t go along with his choice. Adams wanted Moya, in part, because he believed the councilman would be a close ally and could also placate Latinos who were calling for a speaker to come from their community.