How Did Robert Moses Get Power Without Being Elected?

Dwarkesh Patel argues, drawing on Robert Caro's The Power Broker, that Robert Moses got power without winning an election by writing the laws that governed him and hiding new powers inside them.

Moses was known as the best bill drafter in Albany. The Triborough Bridge Authority Act of 1933 was supposed to build two bridges, collect tolls until the bonds were paid, and then shut down. Bonds could run at most 40 years. In a subsection of Section 9 he added one sentence: the authority could, from time to time, pay off old bonds by issuing new ones for any other corporate purpose. A fresh 40-year note could fund a different project. Connecting roads, and facilities not inconsistent with the project, became permission in his reading to change roads, parks, and housing that led back to the bridge.

He wrote the new powers into the bond contracts. The Constitution bars a state from impairing the obligation of contracts, and a public-authority bond is such a contract. After the bonds sold, the legislature, the governor, and the mayor could not take the powers back. Refinancing extended them. In 1946 New York City could borrow only $150 million. Triborough could borrow $360 million the same year. A few buried clauses turned a two-bridge statute into an institution that could build across New York.