BLOOMBERG (NEW YORK) -- Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, has for nearly six months been on alert for a call that could come at any time.
The 48-year-old is in a unique position: Many New Yorkers don’t know who he is, or that the role of public advocate even exists, but he may be on the cusp of becoming the city's leader.
If the embattled Mayor Eric Adams resigns or is removed from his post, Williams — a former city council member — is next in line to succeed him. Until September, when Adams became the first sitting mayor in modern New York City history to be indicted on federal criminal corruption charges, the city’s line of succession had rarely been considered — in 360 years, only two mayors have ever resigned.
But since last week, when President Donald Trump pushed for those charges to be dismissed, the pressure on Adams to step down has escalated like never before. After four deputy mayors tendered their resignations Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams, is facing pressure to act and discussing the way forward with city leaders.
“Overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly,” she said in a statement. “That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored.”
Adams has so far been defiant, resisting calls from across the Democratic party to step down -- including from Williams, who said the mayor is “entirely beholden to the favor of the president and his agenda.” The mayor has also gone after Williams directly.
"I still don't know what he does, but it's hard to serve the city when you wake up at noon,” Adams, a former police captain, said of Williams to a crowd of supporters. “If I stepped down, the public advocate becomes the mayor, so can you imagine turning the city over to him? That is the top reason not to step down.”
Williams was a fervent critic of police abuses of power during his time on City Council, and in 2020 was among the elected officials who advocated to defund the police. He threatened to block the city from collecting property taxes if the city didn’t agree to a full hiring freeze for the NYPD and transition the city’s school safety program away from using police. (He sued the city when it proceeded to collect taxes without his approval.) And during the pandemic, as the city lost wealthy residents to low-tax states, Williams supported tax hikes on those making more than $300,000.
Such positions have left many in New York City’s business community wary of empowering him. Martin Dolan, a Democrat and former banker who unsuccessfully challenged Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her recent congressional primary, plans on running against Williams in the June primary for public advocate.
“I think Jumaane Williams has been a complete disaster as public advocate and he would be a complete disaster as mayor,” Dolan said by phone.
If Adams resigns or is removed, Williams, a progressive Democrat, would suddenly go from overseeing several dozen employees and a $5 million budget to running an entire city government with 300,000 workers and $115 billion in annual spending. His job is vaguely defined but has served as a springboard for previous occupants, like former Mayor Bill de Blasio, to seek higher office.
Williams said he began preparing for the scenario in September, as prosecutors’ sprawling investigation spurred a string of departures from all corners of the Adams administration, including Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg. He started convening meetings to begin understanding the city’s charter in the event of a mayoral vacancy, Williams said.
Less than two weeks later, Manhattan prosecutors would charge the mayor with five counts of bribery and fraud, alleging Adams accepted thousands of dollars in free travel and other gifts from foreign nationals who’d donated to his campaign in exchange for favorable treatment. Adams has denied the charges and said the case was political retribution for his criticism, during the migrant crisis, of the Biden administration’s handling of the border. Prosecutors have said their investigation began before Adams became mayor.
In recent days, Adams’ critics have pointed to a letter written by interim Manhattan US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, that — in rejecting a Justice Department directive to drop charges — said Adams’ lawyer had offered prosecutors “what amounted to a quid pro quo” by indicating the mayor would help with Trump’s policy agenda if the case were dismissed. Representatives for Adams and the DOJ deny any such offer or arrangement, but the backlash swiftly snowballed.
“You always know that, in theory, this could happen,” Williams said of a scenario in which the mayor’s office suddenly becomes vacant. He spoke in an interview with Bloomberg before the DOJ’s order. “You always hope that that’s not what happens because it means something went awry in the city, and I don’t want that.”
Williams’ quiet office in the Beaux-Arts Municipal Building stands a little more than 200 yards (183 meters) from Adams’ desk at City Hall. It features the plaques and framed endorsements he’s accumulated from his 15 years in government and a collection of hip hop action figures including the Notorious B.I.G., members of Run DMC and Salt-n-Pepa.
Williams has made clear he has no intention of running for mayor if he doesn’t fall into the job first and has endorsed City Comptroller Brad Lander in the crowded June Democratic primary election. But, in the event he does become mayor, Williams has said he will also run for election outright in the nonpartisan special election he would be required to schedule within 80 days.
In the short term, if Adams steps down or is removed, “the main objective is to try to maintain the system of government” and “make sure people know the garbage can be picked up, that 911 is going to be answered,” Williams said.
Williams, a first-generation New Yorker whose parents immigrated from Grenada, initially wanted to become an actor. (He has said that when he performs in live theater, it’s the only way he can speak without the tics that he sometimes displays as a symptom of his Tourette’s syndrome).
He became active in New York politics in the mid 2000s as a tenant organizer and first ran for City Council in 2009, winning his Flatbush, Brooklyn, district in a challenge to a Democratic incumbent, with the help of the Working Families Party.
On the council, Williams cut an instantly recognizable figure. Members typically wore suits or business attire, but Williams was more likely to be seen wearing blue jeans, a backpack and a blazer adorned with dozens of political buttons. He developed a reputation for working collaboratively, sponsoring more than 50 pieces of legislation.
He also gained renown as an activist who was willing to face arrest protesting for causes he championed, particularly police reform and racial justice. When he and one of his senior aides were arrested during the West Indian Day Parade in 2011, it drew attention to how the NYPD was stopping, questioning and frisking hundreds of thousands of predominantly Black and Latino men, exacerbating distrust between the police and the community. Two years later, a federal judge would rule the department’s use of the stop-and-frisk policy was unconstitutional.
Dolan, Williams’ challenger, blasted the self-avowed democratic socialist as being imbalanced in his priorities and for failing to advocate against the surge in undocumented migrants seeking refuge in the city. Since mid-2022, the city has spent more than $6.4 billion to shelter and care for the more than 220,000 migrants. “He's supposed to be an activist -- I never saw him at the Lincoln Tunnel waving down the buses and protecting the taxpayers,” said Dolan.
“You need a public advocate who's trying to pack jobs into New York, who's pro-business, who's pro-lower taxes. Let's make the city's economic architecture as appealing as possible for families and businesses,” he said. Williams “stands for everything that’s the opposite of that.”
Privately, Williams has been meeting with business leaders to reassure them that if he were to become mayor, he wouldn’t use the promotion as a mandate to enact his own policy agenda.
Kathy Wylde, who opposed legislation supported by Williams that guaranteed paid sick leave to city workers, recalled his reaching out right after City Hall was rocked by the charges against Adams. He sought help in providing “assurances to the business community that if he were to become mayor through the process, his top goal is to stabilize the city,” said Wylde, who runs the Partnership for New York City, a business group composed of the city’s largest companies.
“He’s very smart. He’s not a capitalist, but he does care about the city,” she said. “Unlike some of the ideologues out there, you can have a conversation with him about what’s helpful or not, to jobs and the economy.”
His supporters attribute his popularity — he beat 16 candidates in a nonpartisan special election in 2019 — in part to his authenticity. He was critical of de Blasio and former Governor Andrew Cuomo when other Democrats refrained from attacking either politician for fear of political repercussions.
“He does not operate as a grimy politician; instead he operates as someone with integrity,” said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of New York’s Working Families Party, the labor-backed third party that helped Williams win his earliest elections.
And he’s been open about his struggles with mental health, with Tourette’s and more recently, about the difficulties his family has faced in recent years as his wife, India Sneed, battled infertility and cancer.
In 2018, Williams decided to run for lieutenant governor with actress Cynthia Nixon in a challenge to then-governor Cuomo, who was seeking a third term in office. While Nixon lost to Cuomo by more than 30 points, Williams earned the New York Times’ endorsement for lieutenant governor and came within 6 points of defeating Hochul, outperforming his own running mate by more than 100,000 votes.
Williams has often been hard to pigeonhole both personally and politically. He has previously said he opposes both same-sex marriage and abortion — beliefs he said were rooted in his Baptist religion and in a traumatic personal experience with a former romantic partner who had an abortion. He has since evolved to support both pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ legislation.
Williams is also a firm believer in the city’s specialized high school admissions test. The exam, which is used to gain entrance to the city’s most selective public schools, has been decried by critics as racist because of low admission rates for Black and Latino students. Williams excelled at the test and was admitted to Brooklyn Tech.
He described his personal political philosophy as “pragmatic optimism.”
“I think folks don’t realize how pragmatic I am in trying to make sure we’re governed the right way,” Williams said. Compromises are an essential part of governing, but “there is a dream, I think, of how we want the city to look, the country to look, the world to look. And you should be allowed to dream.”
— With assistance from Amanda L Gordon