Author: alaskaadmin

DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 51

CROWD CONTROL: State Democrats are aligned on reining in ICE — but there’s sharp disagreements over whether the measures will meaningfully impact the NYPD.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers passed a package of measures this afternoon that seek to curtail federal immigration enforcement agents’ operations in New York.

“Tom Homan can shove it,” Brooklyn state Sen. Andrew Gounardes said at a press conference this morning, referring to the Trump administration’s border czar.

The package aims to restrict the ability of police departments like the NYPD to control crowds while federal officers conduct immigration enforcement actions.

“If ICE or DHS ask a local police department to facilitate their operations — lock down the street, clear out traffic, cordon off an area, put up, ‘do not cross signs,’… those types of actions would no longer be allowed,” Gounardes said of the immigration package.

Also in the agreement: banning masks for federal and local law enforcement and creating a list of “sensitive locations” that ICE won’t be able to enter without a judicial warrant.

The slew of anti-ICE measures are just the latest effort by Democrats in blue states like New York to push back against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration tactics.

But the push to prohibit local police departments from cooperating with federal immigration authorities is likely to prove messy on the ground — as evidenced by a recent fracas in Brooklyn.

A host of elected allies of Zohran Mamdani pointed fingers at the mayor and police commissioner Jessica Tisch earlier this month when the NYPD took steps to control a crowd of anti-ICE protesters who tried to obstruct federal officers that detained an undocumented man and transported him to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

The NYPD says officers were doing their job by responding to 911 calls about disorderly protesters — and they also say these new measures wouldn’t have had any effect on how they operated that evening in front of Wykoff. During those efforts, eight people were arrested due to scuffles with cops and attempts to block the federal officers’ exits. Videos depict a chaotic scene, with the NYPD seen throwing a protester to the ground.

But protesters say the NYPD’s efforts to control the crowd made it so the city’s cops, directly or indirectly, were supporting ICE and clearing a path for their movements.

Brooklyn state Sen. Julia Salazar, a key backer of the immigration measures, insists the new language from the state would’ve stopped the NYPD from interfering with anti-ICE protesters outside the Brooklyn hospital that day.

“Someone was quite violently taken into ICE custody by ICE agents,” Salazar said, recounting the incident. “Then they were taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick, and the police officers from the NYPD facilitated the entry and exit of those officers — which would be prohibited going forward.”

An NYPD spokesperson told Playbook the “legislation will not impact the NYPD because we do not engage in civil immigration enforcement, period.”

The actual language of the bill would bar any “informal agreement” with federal immigration authorities “under which an officer or employee may engage in or assist immigration enforcement, or otherwise may perform a function of an immigration officer.” The dispute over its actual effect prompts questions about the role of local cops to ensure order in the face of anti-ICE demonstrations, especially after similar protests turned deadly in Minnesota.

Mamdani’s spokesperson Dora Pekec said city policy already prohibits coordination between the NYPD and ICE and that “the Mayor supports this piece of legislation and has made clear that he believes ICE has no role in promoting public safety here in New York City.”

Tomorrow Mamdani will release a report – resulting from a February executive order – examining all city interactions with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

At a May 12 event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, Tisch slammed critics who said the NYPD was colluding with ICE at Wyckoff.

“NYPD officers, in the middle of the night, amid chaos outside of their control, did their job professionally and skillfully and made sure events did not spiral into a calamity,” she said. “The critics of the NYPD’s actions — those who would have us stand aside and call cops doing their jobs collusion – have lost sight of the lives at stake.”

The Wyckoff incident prompted rare public criticism of the Mamdani administration from left-leaning lawmakers who held an emergency press conference and wrote a letter decrying the NYPD’s actions that evening.

“They provided security for ICE,” City Council member Sandy Nurse, who represents the area, said of the incident.

In a statement, Hochul spokesperson Jen Goodman said the new law “would not ban local law enforcement from actions like crowd control in the interest of protecting New Yorkers.” — Jason Beeferman

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

POLL-A-PALOOZA: We’ve got the latest snapshots of the city’s most competitive primaries in a trio of surveys from Emerson College Polling for PIX 11 — rare outside polling in these races.

The biggest gap: Former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s challenging Rep. Dan Goldman, is leading by a whopping 34 points. The survey has Lander with 57 percent support, compared to the incumbent’s 23 percent. One in five likely Democratic primary voters are undecided.

Goldman’s campaign was quick to dispute the results: “This poll is not remotely close to an accurate read of this race,” campaign manager Simone Kanter wrote on X. “The data we’ve seen shows a dead heat after messaging.”

He went on to argue that the survey oversampled college-educated voters and young people, writing that the poll “is assuming an electorate that looks exactly like the once-in-a-generation turnout Mamdani mobilized when he was on the ballot.” (Mamdani has endorsed Lander in the race, which will be a test of the mayor’s political muscle.)

Emily Minster, a spokesperson for Lander’s campaign, said they are “taking nothing for granted.”

A recent internal poll from a pro-Goldman super PAC found the incumbent trailing Lander by 5 points. Goldman has been up on the air for weeks; Lander began advertising today.

The polls showed far tighter races in the other primaries for NY-07 and NY-12, which are being vacated by retiring Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Jerry Nadler, respectively.

In NY-07, state Assemblymember Claire Valdez has 23 percent support, followed by Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso with 21 percent. City Council member Julie Won comes in at 13 percent and public defender Vichal Kumar at 1 percent.

Valdez leads among Hispanic voters and is running about even with Won among Asian voters.

An eye-popping 43 percent of respondents are undecided — giving the campaigns a major opportunity to grow their support.

The race for NY-10 is competitive between state Assemblymembers Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, who come in at 22 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg has 11 percent, while anti-Trump commentator George Conway has 10 percent and public health practitioner Nina Schwalbe has 3 percent. Around a third of respondents are undecided.

Recent surveys — nearly all of which have been internal polls — also showed a tight race, with Lasher and Bores toward the front of the pack. Earlier this year, Schlossberg had a slight lead in polls. Heavy outside spending has occurred in recent weeks in favor of Lasher, as well as groups both spending for and against Bores.

Mamdani has a strong approval rating in all three districts: 78 percent approve of him in the 7th, 79 percent in the 10th and 66 percent in the 12th.

The polls were conducted May 16-17 among likely Democratic primary voters. In the 7th, there were 350 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.2 percentage points. In the 10th, there were 450 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.6 percentage points. In the 12th, there were 425 respondents and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.8 percentage points. — Madison Fernandez

NOT THERE: Democrats are feeling good heading into this year’s midterms. But good enough to not donate to battleground Rep. Laura Gillen?

Oath, a donor platform that measures which Democrats it would be most effective to support, shared new recommendations for which candidates should make the cut, our colleagues in D.C. reported this morning. Among those who fall into the do-not-donate category is Gillen, whose Long Island seat that she narrowly flipped in 2024 is widely considered a crucial 2026 contest for control of the House. In a memo, Oath rationalized that Gillen’s seat is “moving into safe Democratic territory” and “does not have a Republican opponent who even raised $100,000.”

However, it’s unclear how much Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll, local Republicans’ candidate of choice, has raised. She entered the race in April — after the second fundraising quarter began — and has not filed a financial report with the Federal Election Commission. Driscoll’s primary opponent, Air Force veteran Marvin Williams, has raised close to $90,000 — most of which was self-funded.

Also adding uncertainty to upcoming elections is a pending case in the Supreme Court that could open the floodgates to massive political spending from the national parties and benefit Republicans.

“Laura Gillen is running in a fiercely competitive Frontline seat,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Riya Vashi said in a statement. “The DCCC is committed to ensuring Laura has the resources and support she needs to win this November.” — Madison Fernandez

From the Capitol

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has spent months working with other agencies planning for “nightmare scenarios” involving waylaid trains and buses during the World Cup, its executive director said Thursday.

Those plans could come in handy given the history of heat-related problems in the region and a pair of fires that disrupted service in and out of Penn Station in the past week.

New Jersey Transit’s backup plan for waylaid trains is a fleet of buses to carry fans. But those buses also break down in the heat and will need to get through the Port Authority’s tunnels to reach MetLife Stadium where eight World Cup matches will be played. So the Port Authority is working on a backup plan for the backup plan, including freeing up lanes in the Lincoln Tunnel that normally go in one direction to go in another.

“It’s going to be July, it’s going to be hot, on any given day we have bus break downs because the engine gets too hot,” Port Authority head Kathryn Garcia told reporters following a board meeting today. “We need to be able to be very flexible.”

Port Authority Chair Kevin O’Toole said during the hottest day last week he was behind a bus that broke down in the Lincoln Tunnel. Within five minutes a tow truck was there and another bus came to pick up the passengers.

“We are going to anticipate certain breakdowns and hopefully we can do our best to accommodate the public,” he said. — Ry Rivard

FROM CITY HALL

NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE: Mamdani announced a deal today to provide 1,000 World Cup tickets to New Yorkers at $50 a pop.

The mayor unveiled his discount ticket scheme this morning at a beer garden in Harlem, rattling off teams, players and moments from World Cups of yore before getting to the meat of his announcement.

“We’re so excited, frankly, because we know that there are so many New Yorkers who thought that there was no way they could afford to go to this tournament, and now there is that glimpse of an opportunity,” the mayor said.

But New Jersey Democrats were having none of it. They attacked FIFA – soccer’s global governing body – for the discounted tickets, which are only available to New York residents, even though the matches are being played in the Garden State.

“This publicity stunt does nothing to address the cost of tickets,” New Jersey Democratic Reps. Nellie Pou and Frank Pallone said in a joint statement.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s spokesperson, Stephen Sigmund, said “FIFA not caring about costs for New Jersey residents isn’t new.”

FIFA said the agreement was between the local host committee and the mayor’s office, and that FIFA was only involved in ensuring the tickets went to fans who genuinely planned to attend rather than sell tickets.

New York and New Jersey officials have repeatedly sparred over how to run the upcoming tournament, despite being co-hosts. Most of that dust up to date has been over dueling bus and train services to get fans to matches. — Ry Rivard and Joe Anuta 

In Other News

— SUITED UP: Mamdani’s top lawyer, Ramzi Kaseem, brings a history of suing the NYPD and defending high-profile civil liberties cases to City Hall. (The New York Times)

— ICED OUT: A Manhattan parking garage removed federal vehicles after protesters alleged they were being used by immigration enforcement agents. (Gothamist)

— SHEIK UP: The Mamdani administration distanced itself from the views of an Islamic leader who has cast doubts on basic facts about the Holocaust. The mayor has met with the controversial figure at least three times since January 2025. (Washington Free Beacon)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

​Politics