Moses withheld land-taking powers inside what sponsors assumed were routine park bills

Evidence

Just to make sure he wouldn’t have much time to even if he wanted to, Moses delayed giving him the bills until the last week of the session. “I never realized what the word ‘appropriation’ meant,” Davison recalls. “I thought it meant what it had always meant, so far as I knew: appropriation of money to be spent. Whenever someone asked me what it meant, I told them that’s what it meant.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 787

Categorization

• SEED: The technique of hiding sweeping powers inside innocuous-sounding legislation is a timeless cautionary pattern awaiting an essay on legislative rubber-stamping and information asymmetry.
• XREF: Connects to the recurring Power Broker theme of Moses’s concealed ambitions and his mastery of legislative mechanics over well-meaning patrician fronts. — connects to: A park commission bill secretly granted powers close to a city’s full charter — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 779; Moses concealed his real parkway plans from the bill’s sponsor — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 786; Moses appropriated private land before completing state-mandated negotiations or funding — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 808 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Moses concealed his real parkway plans from the bill’s sponsor #corroborates (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 786
• Moses appropriated private land before completing state-mandated negotiations or funding #expands (0.80) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 808
• Moses reneged on an agreed deferral and seized even unappropriated property #expands (0.80) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 819
• Moses legally financed park projects through disguised line items in other departments’ budgets. #corroborates (0.75) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 934