Mamdani’s work on the Repeal Egregious Property Accumulation and Invest It Right (REPAIR) bill that seeks to end property tax breaks for Columbia and NYU and funnel the funds to CUNY wonderfully exemplifies both his commendable commitments and his faith in organizing. The bill initiated by Mamdani and John Liu is fundamentally about addressing the needs of the working-class and immigrant population of the city. More than 80 percent of CUNY students are city residents and the vast majority come from low-income households.

The excellent education they receive at the university is not only transformational for the students but is beneficial to the city and the state. CUNY propels six times as many students to the middle class and beyond than all of the Ivies combined. And yet, the university has been systemically underfunded for decades, resulting in real shortages in full-time faculty, support services including academic advisors and mental-health counselors, as well as pressing infrastructural needs. The struggle for CUNY funding is inseparable from the fight for justice and fairness for the city itself.

Columbia and NYU are wealthy institutions that benefit immeasurably from their locations, but less than 20 percent of their student bodies come from the city. Both universities generate significant profits as the two largest landowners in New York City, yet continue to enjoy tax-exempt status due to their designation as charitable institutions under the New York Constitution. The REPAIR Act seeks to address this enormous gap in resources between two incredibly wealthy city institutions on the one hand and a resource-starved university fully devoted to serving ordinary New Yorkers on the other. In response to many of Mamdani’s proposals to fund essential needs for city residents, his critics’ main objection is that there’s no way to pay for them without placing a burden on taxpayers. So, here’s an initiative that would be immensely beneficial to CUNY, and therefore, to all of New York City, and will cost its residents nothing.

It’s certainly heartening to have Mamdani — and others like Liu and Lander — pushing the REPAIR Act, but it’s just as important to recognize how the campaign itself has been conducted. Mamdani chose to table the bill for the 2023–24 legislative session after concluding that there wasn’t yet sufficient support. Following that, he and Lander launched an organizing campaign to build that support, working with the Professional Staff Congress (PSC — CUNY’s faculty and staff union), other elected officials, and the Fund for the City of New York. Most notably, Mamdani helped lead a citywide student campaign in support of the bill, organizing not only CUNY students but also those at Columbia, NYU, and The New School. The campaign now has a full-time organizer and has sparked a strong, cross-campus organizing effort.

Passing the legislation remains a challenge — not only because of opposition from Columbia and NYU, but also from other tax-exempt institutions across the state. Still, the strength of the campaign offers real reasons for optimism. Just as importantly, it highlights that Mamdani is rooted in organizing as the vehicle for meaningful political gains.

Given the egregious actions by the current administration against universities in general, and Columbia in particular, there has not been much momentum behind the bill. Understandably, organizing efforts have shifted toward building cross-campus coalitions in support of academic freedom and mutual aid. Moving forward, however, it is important to recognize that the spirit of the REPAIR Act aligns with such cross-campus solidarity. An important lesson from this climate of opposition is that universities must embrace public service as a core part of their mission. When facing challenges, their strongest defense lies in community support — a measure on which NYU and Columbia don’t score particularly high. The REPAIR Act could play a crucial role in fostering that trust, especially if their tax contributions help fund the education of ordinary New Yorkers. We remain optimistic that Mamdani and others will successfully make the case that the REPAIR Act serves the broader public interest.

On this issue, I hope Mamdani reconsiders his position because I don’t think it is the best strategy for implementing his priorities. The problem with the city school system is not one of centralized authority, it is of funding. We know that CUNY is the city’s greatest engine of upward mobility, but if we are serious about addressing the needs of the working class, that work needs to start much sooner than college. A school system that’s well-resourced and managed across the boroughs would be truly transformational for the lives of ordinary New Yorkers.

Mamdani’s greatest priority when it comes to K–12 education in the city has to start with improving conditions in schools across the city’s poorest districts. That’s where the inequities are starkest. You can walk into a school on the Upper West Side or the West Village and find smart boards, functioning libraries, after-school programs — everything we support and need for our children and our communities. But that’s not the case in schools in East New York or the South Bronx with crumbling infrastructure and no art teacher. The issue is certainly not about taking resources away from excellent schools — it’s about fully funding struggling schools; they’re the ones in real need not just of school supplies and counselors but wraparound services. That’s the equity conversation Mamdani needs to lead.

Now, to the question is what kind of governance system actually makes that possible: The 1969 state law on decentralizing schools and instituting shared governance and community control came out of the civil rights era and was meant to empower communities, especially black and Latino communities. That certainly made sense, especially in a city like New York. But when we look at the actual history, we see that the system failed precisely the communities it was meant to serve. School districts suffered because of patronage, corruption, low community engagement, and the inability of mayors like Ed Koch to implement meaningful changes.

Bill de Blasio, whom Mamdani spoke of as the best mayor in his lifetime, supported the continuation of centralized control. This is especially interesting given that the original shift to mayoral control happened under Bloomberg — we don’t have to agree with Bloomberg’s reasons to accept the outcome. De Blasio understood that with centralized authority, a mayor could push through system-wide initiatives that simply wouldn’t have been possible under the fractured, board-dominated model of the past. Take his work on equity-based school funding: Through the Fair Student Funding (FSF) formula, he was able to direct increased resources to historically underfunded schools. Between 2014 and 2021, the city increased FSF allocations significantly, and by the end of his tenure, nearly every school was receiving 100 percent of their fair funding targets. The other example, of course, is what is arguably de Blasio’s greatest achievement: the expansion of universal pre-K. This would not have been feasible without centralized control over budget priorities and implementation across districts.

Since Mamdani wants to deepen and expand the equity agenda, he needs a governance structure that allows him to act citywide, with urgency and consistency. I don’t think he should go back to a well-intentioned but failed experiment. Instead, he needs to focus on delivering for the city’s most underserved students.

I certainly hope so. There is already strong groundwork in labor and other organizations of centering climate issues. As a result of campaigns waged by DivestNY, a coalition of several organizations including my union, the PSC, the city and the state have made commitments to divest major public pension funds from fossil fuels. I don’t doubt that such campaigns will be energized if Mamdani wins and will push for even more transformational initiatives.

At a broader level, we should also note that Mamdani’s platform, even when it doesn’t explicitly lead with environmental language, is deeply aligned with the goals of sustainability. That’s because public goods are intrinsically environment friendly, like public transportation, affordable housing, and infrastructure like parks, etc. On the other hand, profit-driven real estate development left unchecked threatens not just affordability but the environment too. Pushing back against those entrenched interests won’t be easy; as we know well, there’s money and power lined up on the other side. But the broader point is that we don’t win on climate by siloing it as a niche concern. We win by threading it through every part of our public agenda — housing, transit, schools, jobs. That’s the real shift that Mamdani’s platform represents.

That’s a really important question, because it can never be just about the rise of one strong figure — no matter how exciting that may be. To make real progress on left-wing priorities, we need to build a political culture rooted in organized working-class power, grounded in unions and community organizations. When candidates are embedded in that kind of culture, they understand that their political future is tied to the power of those unions and organizations.

To some extent, we’re already seeing this play out with Mamdani’s candidacy. Contrary to what the New York Times and other mainstream media might suggest, he didn’t come out of nowhere. His emergence can be traced back to an energized Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the wake of Bernie Sanders’s first presidential run. While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez remains the most well-known example of DSA’s electoral success, the organization also helped elect Mamdani and seven others to the New York State legislature.

In a detailed piece on NYC-DSA’s political and electoral work, Michael Thomas Carter rightly observes, “Over the past nine years, NYC-DSA has built a field organizing machine that is arguably the strongest electoral operation in municipal politics nationwide. Through wins and losses in local, state, and federal elections, NYC-DSA has learned strategic lessons, developed significant logistical capacity, created a volunteer base for canvassing and outreach, and nurtured a cadre of experienced electoral campaign workers who work on endorsed campaigns.”

It’s telling that in his application for DSA’s endorsement, Mamdani stated he would not run without the organization’s backing. While his powerful campaign focused on affordability and his personal charisma are undeniably important, the campaign could not have mobilized some sixty thousand volunteers to push him over the finish line without an active, organized base behind it.

Winning elections is necessary, but it clearly cannot be the end goal of left-wing politics; the objective is to implement our priorities. Which brings us back to your question of accountability: How do we hold politicians accountable once they’re in office? For that, we need a Left strong enough not just to help elect candidates, but more importantly, to help them carry out the platform on which they ran.

If Mamdani wins and tries to implement a rent freeze, for example, he’ll be up against very powerful interests. To succeed in the legislature, he’ll need an organizing campaign to push his agenda — in communities, in the press, and in the streets. For tasks like that, it’s not enough to be a strong electoral machine; you need real presence and grounding in your constituencies.

To implement a socialist program, we need class power — built primarily through labor unions, but also through campaigns and coalitions focused on working-class priorities like transportation, housing, and more. Ultimately, we need unions and organizations that not only run winning campaigns but are powerful enough to help their endorsed officeholders actually deliver on their agenda. That’s the real key to accountability.