Julie Menin was elected Speaker of the New York City Council on January 7, 2026. An attorney and civic leader, Speaker Menin has more than three decades of experience in the public and private sectors.
Speaker Menin has proudly represented District 5, which includes parts of the Upper East Side and all of Roosevelt Island, in the Council since January 2022. During her first two terms, the Council passed her legislation to advance universal child care, create an Office of Healthcare Accountability to rein in excessive prices, ease burdens on small businesses by creating a one-shop-stop web portal for city licenses, codify the right to reproductive health care services, and more.
At the same time, Speaker Menin has effectively addressed a full range of constituent issues, including sanitation and rat-mitigation concerns, street safety, unlicensed smoke shops, robust capital funding for district parks and schools, and access to low-cost internet for NYCHA residents.
Prior to her election to the City Council, Speaker Menin served as the city’s 2020 Census Director, achieving a historic result where New York finished first of all major cities. As Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, she helped implement the Paid Sick Leave Law and launched a new Earned Income Tax Credit initiative that resulted in over $260 million being returned to low-income New Yorkers. In that role, she also spearheaded the creation of NYC Kids RISE, which has now grown college savings accounts totaling more than $44 million for 280,000 public school kindergarteners. Speaker Menin is also a former Commissioner of Media and Entertainment and former adjunct professor at Columbia University who taught on city government.
Speaker Menin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Columbia and received her Juris Doctor from Northwestern University School of Law. She resides in Yorkville with her husband and children.
