Socialist state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has made a splash in the race for New York City mayor. A relentless social media campaign has helped him raise big dollars, despite his long-shot odds against incumbent mayor Eric Adams and former governor Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani has also adopted a platform of terrible ideas. His campaign materials portray him as a Robin Hood candidate, staking out far-left positions on housing, public transit, and the minimum wage—in addition to his opposition to basic immigration enforcement and support for anti-Semitic rioters. Bad as all that is, though, his worst policy ideas involve the city’s most vulnerable citizens—children in troubled home environments.

The Queens socialist has cosponsored legislation that would have banned routine drug screens of pregnant and postpartum mothers, as well as newborns, without written and oral consent from parents. The law would also require written disclosures advising parents to consult with legal counsel before signing a consent form because it might expose them to a child-welfare investigation.

As we covered in a Manhattan Institute policy paper last year, this sort of proposal is part of a broader push by the radical Left to dismantle the child-welfare infrastructure. It is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the drivers of child abuse and neglect.

Mamdani wouldn’t stop at making it easier for vulnerable newborns to remain in the custody of drug-addicted parents. He has also cosponsored legislation that would have prohibited people from providing anonymous reports of suspected child abuse or neglect. Instead, callers would have to give their names and contact information. In 2023, he cosponsored a bill to require child-welfare workers to apprise guardians, again both orally and in writing (in their preferred language), of the numerous ways they can refuse to cooperate with child-welfare investigators at the first point of contact, whatever the nature of the alleged abuse.

Thankfully, these legislative efforts failed (for now). But as mayor, Mamdani would be ideally placed to put these ideas into practice, just as “progressive” prosecutors use their offices to enact policies that lawmakers reject. It’s hard to believe that the positions reflected in Mamdani’s bills are shared by more than a small minority of New Yorkers, though few New Yorkers are likely aware that he holds them.

Mamdani’s positions are all the more troubling given the many recent, tragic, and well-documented failures of New York City’s child-welfare system. We have covered several child fatalities that the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) could have—and should have—prevented. The ACS has allowed far too many vulnerable children to remain in the custody of abusive and neglectful parents.

Just last week, the lifeless body of a three-year-old boy was carelessly dumped at a Brooklyn hospital by an unidentified woman (authorities suspect that she was his mother). The woman then fled the scene in a car driven by an unidentified man—possibly her boyfriend, who has since been arrested for assaulting the toddler weeks before his death. The boy’s grandmother had been fighting for custody since 2022, claiming that the mother had a drug problem.

Earlier this month, a four-year-old boy living in a homeless shelter died after being rushed to the hospital. His parents, subsequently charged with child endangerment, were caught on camera hiding heroin in their BMW. Why wasn’t anyone monitoring the father, with his long rap sheet for drug- and gun-related arrests?

Can the next mayor do anything to fix ACS’s failing leadership? Journalists covering the race should ask candidates this and other questions about their views on child welfare. And they should be especially wary of a mayoral candidate who wants to make it harder to protect children from parents like these.