In People v. Tremaine (252 NY 27 [1929]), the Legislature added to a Governor's budget bill a provision requiring that the segregation of certain lump-sum appropriations be approved by the chairpersons of the Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways and Means Committee. This power to act on the segregation of appropriations was held to be unconstitutional as it engrafted executive duties upon a legislative office and usurped the executive power by indirection, concluding that the "Legislature may not attach void conditions to an appropriation bill ... and if it attempts to do so, the attempt and not the appropriation fails" (at 45). Referring to what it considered a "largely academic" question in light of its aforesaid determination, the Court went on to discuss whether the provision inserted in the Governor's appropriation bill giving power to the legislative chairpersons violated the "no alteration" restriction of section 4 of article VII. It concluded that since the provision did not strike out or reduce an item therein and was not a separately stated addition, "its insertion in the bill was improper," and "much force attaches to the contention that such a direction is one which the Governor might veto" (at 49-50).