New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants you to bring your papers if you want to pick up a shovel. Just don't ask him to apply the same standard at a polling place.
As a winter storm bore down on the city over the weekend, Mamdani urged New Yorkers to sign up as emergency snow shovelers. The pitch sounded neighborly enough. During a Saturday press briefing, the mayor laid out the opportunity:
"For those who want to do more to help your neighbors and earn some extra cash, you too can become an emergency snow shoveler."
Then came the fine print. The New York Sanitation Department requires applicants to bring two forms of ID, plus copies and a Social Security card. According to the New York Post, there are no fewer than five forms of identification to bring to your local sanitation garage before you're cleared to push snow off a sidewalk.
Five forms of ID. To volunteer with a shovel.
According to the New York ABC affiliate, the backlash was immediate, and it wrote its own punchlines. Comedian Jimmy Failla captured the mood on X, mocking the mayor for "requiring TWO forms of ID to be a voluntary shoveler for the blizzard" and dubbing the whole affair "Jim SNOW 2.0."
But the sharpest criticism came from Indiana GOP Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who called Mamdani's request what it plainly is: hypocritical. Stutzman posted on X:
"Mamdani opposes the SAVE America Act for requiring ID at the polls — but sees nothing excessive about requiring proof of citizenship AND multiple forms of ID to volunteer part-time SHOVELING SNOW!?"
He followed up with a pointed conclusion:
"Liberal hypocrisy! This is why we need to establish consistency across states' voting laws."
Stutzman's point doesn't need much embellishment. The SAVE America Act would require identification to vote in federal elections. That's it. And yet politicians like Mamdani treat such proposals as unconscionable barriers to democratic participation, the kind of requirement that supposedly disenfranchises entire communities. But clearing snow? That apparently demands a full dossier.
This is the pattern that keeps repeating in progressive governance. Identification requirements are an unbearable burden when they apply to something the left wants to keep loose, like election integrity. But the moment a city bureaucracy needs to process paperwork for a temporary snow removal gig, suddenly IDs are a perfectly reasonable ask.
The contradiction isn't incidental. It reveals the actual principle at work: identification isn't the problem. Control is the point. Progressive leaders are perfectly comfortable with documentation requirements when they're the ones administering the program. They only object when ID mandates might tighten a system they'd prefer to keep porous.
Consider what Mamdani is actually communicating to New Yorkers. If you want to participate in civic life by casting a ballot, asking for your ID is suppression. If you want to participate in civic life by shoveling a public sidewalk, you'd better show up with two forms of ID, copies, and your Social Security card. The city needs to know exactly who you are before it hands you a snow shovel, but it bristles at knowing who's filling out a ballot.
The Libs of TikTok account on X piled on with a broader critique, noting that "mountains of snow and garbage were left on the streets for weeks" in New York City. It's a familiar story for residents who have watched city services deteriorate while the bureaucratic apparatus grows ever more demanding of the citizens trying to help.
This is modern progressive municipal governance in miniature. The city can't keep its own streets clear. It turns to volunteers. Then it buries those volunteers in paperwork before they can lift a shovel. The instinct to regulate, document, and process overtakes the simple objective of getting snow off the ground.
Mamdani told New Yorkers to "show up at your local sanitation garage with your paperwork, which is accessible online." Accessible online. For an emergency snow shoveling program during a storm. The bureaucratic reflex is so deeply embedded that even a crisis can't override it.
House Republicans were among those highlighting the absurdity, and the reason is obvious. The voter ID debate has been one of the clearest fault lines in American politics for years. The left insists that requiring identification to vote is discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary. Meanwhile, you need an ID to board a plane, buy cold medicine, open a bank account, pick up a prescription, and now, apparently, to shovel snow in New York City.
At some point, the "ID is a barrier" argument collapses under the weight of every other context in which progressives accept identification as routine. Mamdani just added the most absurd data point yet to that growing list.
New York City residents who want to vote won't be asked for their papers. But residents who want to clear their neighbor's sidewalk will need to assemble a small portfolio first. That's not a policy. It's a confession.
