New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani drew the ire of major Jewish organizations last week by vetoing a schools “buffer zone” bill. On Tuesday, a special election could give the legislation new life.

Appearing at a Shabbat service this past weekend, City Council candidate Carl Wilson’s pitch to Jewish New Yorkers put that bill front and center: Wilson, one of four candidates vying for the District 3 seat, is the only one who says he would vote to override Mamdani’s veto.

“It’s about what kind of city we want to have,” Wilson said to the Downtown Minyan, which was meeting at the Center for Jewish History.

“I happen to be a member of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “And if there was a scourge of homophobia, I would want this city to rally around me in the same way that it needs to rally around Jewish New Yorkers right now.”

The bill’s supporters face an uphill battle in overriding Mamdani’s veto. To do so, they will need to convince four additional Council members to support the bill, reaching a two-thirds majority of 34. Wilson’s election would cut that number down to three.

Council members have flipped their vote to override a mayoral veto in the past — but in this case, all 19 members who voted “no” (and the one who abstained) are part of the council’s progressive caucus, and would be crossing Mamdani.

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Still, that hasn’t held Menin back from making an effort, including by trying to persuade her current colleagues and working to elect a new one who’s sympathetic to the cause in District 3.

The race for the empty seat in the district, which covers parts of Manhattan’s West Side, is seen as something of a proxy war between Mamdani, who endorsed progressive Lindsey Boylan, and Jewish Council Speaker Julie Menin, who endorsed Wilson and appeared alongside him on Saturday. Coming just days after Mamdani vetoed Intro 175-B, the race has become a new front in the battle over the legislation that’s part of Menin’s five-point plan to address antisemitism.

“I don’t know how anyone in their right mind can be against students having the right to enter and exit the school facility,” Menin said on Saturday.

The bill in question, sponsored by the Jewish Council member Eric Dinowitz, was introduced in response to a pair of pro-Palestinian protests outside synagogues, and pertains to demonstrations around “educational facilities.”

Wilson worked most recently as the chief of staff for Erik Bottcher, who vacated the District 3 seat earlier this year to join the state Senate.

Menin endorsed Wilson back in January. He has also drawn endorsements from big names in the Manhattan political establishment such as Rep. Jerry Nadler, Comptroller Mark Levine and Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who are all Jewish. More recently, New Yorkers who support the “buffer zone” bill have begun rallying around Wilson.

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, endorsed Wilson as well. The race has generated discourse about whether District 3, which includes the site of the Stonewall riots, should be represented by an openly gay politician.

Wilson’s highest-profile opponent is Boylan, who received a major boost when she was endorsed by Mamdani last week.

Boylan, a Democratic Socialists of America member since last year, thanked Mamdani for vetoing Intro 175-B, and said she would uphold the veto if elected to the council.

A former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Boylan was the first person to publicly accuse him of sexual harassment. A group called Next NYC, founded to oppose Mamdani- and DSA-backed candidates, has raised at least $233,000 against Boylan, mostly from Cuomo allies.

She has long organized with progressive groups like Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, which also opposed the package of bills. Boylan is critical of Israel, accusing the country of committing a “genocide” in Gaza. It was a shift from 2019 when, during her unsuccessful campaign to challenge Nadler, she told Jewish Insider she “has an unshakeable support for Israel.”

Boylan has also been endorsed by Brad Lander, the Jewish progressive and Mamdani ally who’s running for Congress; and Rabbi Abby Stein, a transgender activist who’s a member of both JFREJ and anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

A third candidate — the French-born Chelsea district leader Layla Law-Gisiko — told City & State’s Peter Sterne that she, like Boylan, would support Mamdani’s veto.

Leslie Boghosian Murphy, the chair of a community board in the district, wrote in a statement that she would also uphold the veto if she wins, and said she understands “deeply the concern many in the Jewish community are feeling right now.”

She has been endorsed by former Manhattan borough president Ruth Messinger, who is Jewish, and former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

When asked in March whether she would refuse donations from “AIPAC, SolidarityPAC, police and corrections associations, the fossil fuel industry, and the charter school industry,” Boghosian Murphy answered, “Yes to police and corrections, fossil fuel and charter schools. I would have to look into the Jewish PACs you listed and their works.”

Progressive groups are urging council members to sustain the veto. And even if Wilson wins on Tuesday, Menin will still need to come up with three more votes in less than four weeks to overcome their stance.

“We need four votes to override the veto,” Menin said on Saturday, urging synagogue-goers to vote for Wilson. “We have 30 days to make a decision.”

One council member who may be on Menin’s radar is Gale Brewer, who abstained from the initial vote.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen with this bill,” Brewer told the New York Daily News on Friday, after Mamdani’s veto. “I don’t have feelings, I stopped having feelings 40 years ago.”

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