Warren "Bill" de Blasio-Wilhelm (8 May 1961-) was the Democratic Mayor of New York City from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2021, succeeding Michael Bloomberg and preceding Eric Adams.
Biography[]
Warren Wilhelm Jr. was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York on 8 May 1961, and he was raised in Norwalk, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was raised by his mother, and he took her surname, "De Blasio", as his own. He worked for the social justice group, the Quixote Center, in Maryland during the late 1980s, travelling to Nicaragua in 1988 and sympathizing with the Sandinistas; in 1990, he identified as a democratic socialist. At the same time, he worked for Mayor David Dinkins, and he came to work as Charles Rangel's congressional campaign manager, for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, managed Hillary Clinton's US Senate bid, and served on the New York City Council from Brooklyn from 2002 to 2009. De Blasio went on to serve as Public Advocate of New York City from 2010 to 2013, and he went on to be elected Mayor of New York City in 2013 and again in 2017. As Mayor, De Blasio ended "stop-and-frisk" and implemented de-escalation training for NYPD police officers, reduced prosecutions for cannabis possession, implemented the wearing of body cameras by police officers, and ended the post-9/11 surveillance of New York's Muslim inhabitants. De Blasio also supported progressive economic, urban planning, public education, police relations, and privatization policies. In 2019, he announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, supporting a $15 minimum wage, supported the Taliban's inclusion in peace talks to end the Afghanistan War, and supported increased taxations for corporations who profited from automation, but he was consistently met with low poll numbers, both in New York City and on the national level. On 20 September 2019, De Blasio dropped out of the presidential race, and, on 14 February 2020, he endorsed Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. He left office on 31 December 2021, and he was succeeded by Eric Adams.