Bosswetting a reform committee with prestigious names wins clout a governor otherwise lacks

Evidence

The first step was to “get the names,” to enlarge the committee by adding members whose prestige would lend it political clout. With Hughes, Mills and Stimson already aboard, the job was easy. As the letterhead of the Citizens Committee on Reorganization in the State Government was continually reprinted so that the names of the latest joiners would be on it, the list above “Robert Moses, Secretary” came to include a cross-section of elements of the state who normally would have had nothing to do with a Governor who bore the stamp of Tammany. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 473

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Recruiting prestige names to confer nonpartisan legitimacy on a program is a power technique parallel to how the Citizens Union and reform movements win public acceptance discussed in Caro’s broader reform-vs-Tammany theme.
• XREF: connects to: Governors defer to officials who can actually get big things done — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 1405; Lay merit-selection commissioners are politically connected to the governor who appoints them — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 443

Broader Connections

• Governors defer to officials who can actually get big things done #expands (0.78) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1405