A park commission bill secretly granted powers close to a city’s full charter

Evidence

By the time the “defining” of the terms used in section eight was finished, the Long Island State Park Commission would be empowered, if the act was passed, to write its own laws, hire policemen to enforce them and prosecutors to prosecute them. By the time it was finished, the commission would, if the act was passed, have over its land, land which if Moses had his way would total forty thousand acres, virtually all the powers granted to the City of New York in the city’s charter. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 779

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Could support a piece on legislative sleeper clauses as infrastructure power-grabs, relevant to how enabling legislation disguises scope.
• XREF: connects to: Vague statutory language enabled a park commission to seize land at will — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 804; Moses withheld land-taking powers inside what sponsors assumed were routine park bills — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 787

Broader Connections

• Moses withheld land-taking powers inside what sponsors assumed were routine park bills #expands (0.95) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 787
• Vague statutory language enabled a park commission to seize land at will #expands (0.90) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 804