How an unelected man ruled New York for 30 years
In a Nutshell
Robert Moses held unelected power over New York for 30 years by drafting legislation that created self-perpetuating public authorities, entrenching his control through bond contracts that couldn't be revoked by elected officials, and holding multiple government positions simultaneously while building coalitions of beneficiaries. Lyndon Johnson rose to become the most powerful Senate majority leader in history by controlling committee assignments, using unanimous consent agreements to manage the agenda, and brokering complex deals that gave different factions unrelated benefits to secure votes. Both men demonstrated that power accumulates through institutional manipulation and strategic coalition-building rather than formal authority or ideology.
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Robert Caro spent 50 years writing a 4-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson and 7 years writing the biography of Robert Moses, the master builder of New York. His books are widely regarded as the best explorations of political power that have ever been written.
Robert Moses built more of the physical city than anybody before or since. He built the Triborough and Verrazzano bridges, the Cross Bronx Expressway, Jones Beach, Lincoln Center, Shea Stadium, 2 giant power dams upstate, and hundreds of parks and pools. Of the 899 miles of highways completed in New York State by 1964, Moses had built 672 of them. His projects collectively cost hundreds of billions of dollars in today's money. For more than 30 years, Robert Moses was the most powerful person in New York, more powerful than any elected mayor or governor, despite not being elected to anything.
Moses wrote the laws that governed him. He was called the best bill drafter in Albany and used that skill to write himself powers that legislators voting on his bills didn't know they were granting.
Moses used public authorities - government-created corporations that build city infrastructure. Public authorities sell bonds to pay for a specific project like a new bridge, then charge drivers tolls until the bonds are paid off, after which the authority would dissolve.
The New York State Congress approved the Triborough Bridge Authority Act of 1933, which Albany assumed would have a built-in expiry date. Section 1 stated the authority would dissolve once bonds were paid off. Since bonds could run at most 40 years, and revenues would pay back initial costs far sooner, the authority appeared to have a clear expiry date.
In a subsection of Section 9, Moses added a single sentence stating the authority could, "from time to time," pay off its old bonds by issuing new ones. Those new bonds could be "for any other corporate purpose." So just before original bonds expired, the authority gained the right to issue a fresh 40-year note for potentially different uses.
The original act allowed the authority to build 2 bridges and their approaches. Moses' amendments also gave the authority the right to build connecting roads and "facilities not inconsistent with the use of the project." When interpreted as Moses intended, these rights allowed him to alter most roads, parks, and housing in New York.
In 1946, the entire New York City government could only borrow $150 million before hitting its legal debt limit. That same year, Triborough could borrow $360 million - more than double the amount of money as the largest city in America.
Moses planned for future governors or mayors attempting to claw back power. The United States Constitution says no state shall make "any law impairing the obligation of contracts" entered into by a government entity. A bond issued by a public authority is such a contract.
Moses snuck a clause into the act allowing him to add "any other matters of like or different character, which in any way affect the security or protection of the bonds" into bond contracts. These matters included that Triborough could charge whatever tolls it wanted for however long it wanted, and keep the surplus generated.
Moses could entrench his powers by writing them into bonds he issued. From the moment those bonds were sold, those powers could no longer be revoked by the legislature, governor, or mayor - only by a constitutional convention. The powers were guaranteed for the bonds' lifetime, which could always be extended by refinancing.
The bond covenants turned Triborough Authority's powers into granite, but nothing guaranteed Moses would remain chairman. Moses drafted the Triborough Act so commissioners could be removed midterm only on "stated charges after a formal hearing." Differences with mayors or governors were about what he decided to build and whom he displaced, not personal conduct.
As Caro writes: "Robert Moses was not himself corrupt. He was, in fact, as uninterested in obtaining payoffs for himself as any public servant who ever lived. In the politicians' phrase, he was money honest." There were never formal charges to bring.
At his peak, Moses held 12 different government posts simultaneously: city construction coordinator, chairman of the State Council of Parks, chairman of the State Power Authority, and others. Some positions were appointed by the mayor, some by the governor, so no single person could remove him from all positions simultaneously. Removing him from any one position meant making an enemy of the man who would still be the most powerful person in New York.
Moses was incredibly popular during the 1930s and 1940s. New York high schools voted him the most admired New Yorker. This was because he delivered public works millions used and enjoyed: beaches, parks, pools. In his first 4 months as city park commissioner, he kept crews working round the clock and finished 1,700 park renovations without personal scandal.
As Caro writes: "It was not unusual at park and playground opening ceremonies for children prodded by their parents to break into the cheer: '2, 4, 6, 8. Who do we appreciate? Mr. Moses. Mr. Moses. Mr. Moses.'"
Moses could deliver enormous public works within timeframes fitting single election cycles. If a mayor gave Moses power to build something, the mayor could expect to stand at its ribbon cutting before re-election. By 1936, New York was getting 1/7 of the federal government's Depression-era work relief money for the entire nation, with projects chosen by Moses.
If a mayor had different construction ideas, he'd need to draw up his own plans, which he lacked independent technical expertise to do. He could either build Moses' projects or build nothing.
Moses constantly threatened to quit when he didn't get his way. Under Mayor Wagner, one aide said "it seemed like he was resigning about one thing or another about twice a day." He threatened resignation to Mayor La Guardia so often that La Guardia's lawyer printed forms reading "I, Robert Moses, do hereby resign as so-and-so" to save Moses writing it out.
Moses spent years befriending owners of the city's newspapers and many weekends at the summer home of the Sulzbergers, the family that owns the New York Times. Mayors knew that if Moses resigned, front pages would tell the story of how a man above politics was driven out by a craven politician who refused to compromise the city's interests.
Moses built a concentrated faction for YIMBY (yes in my backyard). He built a graft machine ensuring the most powerful people in the state would benefit when new construction happened. Banks bought his bonds at steep discounts without competitive bidding, unions got more jobs, politically connected lawyers got legal fees, and party bosses got paid to broker insurance policies on bridges with no plausible risk of falling down.
Moses could rely on these beneficiaries to call anyone standing in the way of projects, whether borough presidents or the governor himself.
Moses began as a brilliant young reformer in the 1910s who joined the good government movement trying to replace Tammany Hall's patronage with honest administration. He spent years fighting the machine, but his reforms were killed. The machine won, and Moses learned that ideals are useless without power to realize them.
As Caro writes: "In the beginning, and for decades of his career, the power Robert Moses amassed was the servant of his dreams, amassed for their sake, so that his gigantic, city-shaping visions could become reality. But power is not an instrument that its possessor can use with impunity. It is a drug that creates in the user a need for larger and larger doses, and Moses was a user."
Lyndon Johnson's story is the opposite. Through most of his career, there's little evidence he had coherent political ideology. He was a ruthless power seeker who embraced whatever was most expedient at the time.
When Johnson first entered the US Senate, he realized the most powerful men were conservative Southern Dixiecrats. The Johnson they encountered molded himself to their form. When Caro interviewed former Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge about Johnson's views on the proper relationship between white and Black people, Talmadge replied "Master and servant." When asked if Johnson had any sympathy for Blacks or desire to improve their lot, Talmadge replied "None indicated" and "He was with us in his heart. I believed him. I believed him."
Of course, Johnson later spearheaded the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act as president.
Before becoming president and vice president, Johnson was the most powerful Senate majority leader, perhaps the most powerful legislator in American history. Caro writes: "He was master of the Senate, master of an institution that had never before had a master, and that at the time almost half a century later, when this book is being written, has not had one since."
No leader before Johnson wielded this power because the Senate had been deliberately set up by the founders to not be led. When Johnson asked the Library of Congress for a list of the majority leader's formal powers, he found exactly 1: the right to be recognized first on the floor.
Before Johnson, the majority leader was more a lightning rod - blamed for Senate failures without actual power to address them. Johnson's two predecessors as majority leader both lost their Senate seats.
Johnson became his party's leader at 44 years old in a Senate whose average age was around 60, partly because hardly anybody else wanted this thankless job. Johnson used three tactics to transform himself into the second most powerful person in America.
Gaining Leverage
Johnson made sure he had things to promise and threaten with. He transformed Senate rules, institutions, and norms so he alone had power to grant important favors to colleagues. If a senator needed a bill passed, Johnson could get it scheduled and persuade committee chairmen to report it out. If the bill needed House help, Johnson had a direct line to Speaker Sam Rayburn. If a senator needed campaign money, Johnson could put in a good word with Texas oilmen.
Johnson put himself in position to control committee assignments, which shape a senator's entire career. For about a century, these had been handed out based on seniority. Johnson changed the system so many seats were negotiated by the party steering committee he controlled. In 1957, when Estes Kefauver voted against Johnson on an important motion, the coveted open seat on the Foreign Relations Committee went to the far more junior John F. Kennedy instead.
Setting the Agenda
Johnson's main tool for controlling the agenda was the unanimous consent agreement, which sets aside unlimited Senate debate for a single bill, fixing allotted debate time and constraining amendment opportunities. Johnson made their use the norm, refusing to allow bills to reach the floor until such agreements were in place. He wanted to control which bills reached the floor and keep the floor from changing senators' minds, since he wanted every vote settled in private through wheeling and dealing where his leverage worked best.
Brokering All Deals
Johnson made sure Senate information ran through him. He had every committee assign a staffer to tell him what was being drafted. His aides tracked what every senator was up to. He spent days in the cloakroom and hallways cajoling and listening to colleagues, knowing exactly what each senator really wanted and what they would or wouldn't give up to get it.
Johnson was desperate to pass some civil rights bill in 1957 because he wanted to become president, but no Southerner with his record of voting against civil rights could hope to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. The problem was finding a bill strong enough to win Northern liberals yet weak enough that Southerners wouldn't filibuster.
The sticking point was who would preside over court cases where Southern electoral officials were accused of suppressing Black voters. Southern senators insisted on jury trials, but Northern senators were livid because Southern states required jurors to be registered voters, meaning all-white Southern juries would never convict white registrars for turning away Black voters.
Over 7 months, Johnson built a masterful deal bringing together wholly unrelated factions. Western senators got a vote on a federal dam between Idaho and Oregon. Midwestern Republicans with powerful railroad unions got jury trial rights extended to striking workers. Moderates got a clause guaranteeing Black citizens could serve on federal juries. Meanwhile, the jury trial guarantee for Southern election officials stayed in, keeping the bill weak enough that Southerners agreed not to filibuster it.
A dam in Idaho, protections for union workers, and federal jury rules had nothing to do with voting rights in the South, at least not to anyone lacking Lyndon Johnson's inside knowledge and political creativity.
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