Lina Khan has quickly thrown water on any hopes that she might be a benign force on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team. The former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair suggested in a recent interview that she’s looking to make sure Mamdani can “unilaterally deploy” ample power as mayor.
Khan is “exploring ways to maximize…Mamdani’s executive authority through little-used laws already in place,” as Bloomberg put it.
“Exploring ways to maximize executive authority” is a scary enough phrase no matter who the executive in question is. But it’s got a particularly chilling ring when applied to Mandami, a Democratic Socialist who has said there’s no problem too minor for the government to get involved in, and Khan, who spearheaded some of the Biden administration’s worst efforts to disrupt free markets with heavy-handed government intervention, repeatedly tested the limits of FTC power, and attempted to do through an executive agency things that should have been left to Congress.
In a recent interview with Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor, Khan made it clear that she envisions Mamdani’s New York City as a place where the mayor can wield ample unchecked power.
“I’m gonna be especially focused on things like ‘how do we make sure that we have a full accounting of all of the laws and authorities that the mayor can unilaterally deploy?'” Khan said in the interview, which was taped last week but won’t air in full until November 23. She went on to talk about how her time at the FTC taught her there were “unused and underused” powers that she could wield, and she wanted to find out the full extent of authority that would be possible for Mandami as mayor.
With Khan’s influence, we can expect the future Mamdani mayoral administration to get creative—and, perhaps, unconstitutional—in its application of existing laws and authorities to enact Mamdani’s agenda, which includes things like city-run grocery stores, free child care and bus rides, nearly doubling the minimum wage, and a freeze on raising rents.
Much of Mamdani’s agenda would require acquiescence from state government authorities, which may make enacting it a stretch.
Khan apparently isn’t phased. “A lot of what he is going to be looking to deliver is going to be requiring working closely with other institutional actors, be it the governor, be it the legislature, but he should also have a lot of ability to do things unilaterally,” she told Vietor.
She also seems intent on taking elements of the Biden administration’s failed agenda to the Big Apple. “Khan is planning to look at recently-enacted and proposed legislation and regulations affecting algorithmic price discrimination, surveillance pricing and junk fees,” Bloomberg reports.
And, of course, no Khan operation would be complete without a little bit of absolutely overreaching antitrust policy.
At the FTC, Khan went after tech platforms and other companies “under novel theories of harm,” notes Liz Hoffman at Semafor. “In her new role, Khan has identified an early avenue in a 56-year-old NYC prohibition on business practices deemed ‘unconscionable’—a designation expansive enough to delight any regulator.”
This could include targeting stadiums for selling high-price concessions, Hoffman reports. (No problem too small for government action, indeed.)
If Khan’s influence takes hold, we can expect from the future Mamdani administration not just big meddling in significant aspects of city life but also the sort of low-grade authoritarianism we saw attempted under Biden, who rallied against the way cable bills were formatted and airline ticket fees were displayed.
Using the might power of the state to make stadium hot dogs cheaper is a perfect distillation of the sort of petty populism that Khan has come to be known for—and Mamdani may, alas, be angling to adopt as NYC mayor.
