{"id":566,"date":"2022-09-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/?p=566"},"modified":"2022-09-07T06:09:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T10:09:05","slug":"on-the-waterfront-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/2022\/09\/08\/on-the-waterfront-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Waterfront (Commission)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1953, partially in response to a series of articles in The New York Sun<\/em> that exposed the grip the mob had on commerce in the ports around New York City,((“On the Waterfront, a Mob Watchdog Is Fighting to Survive,” New York Times<\/em> (online) January 17, 2018.)) the States of New York and New Jersey, with the consent of Congress, entered into a “compact” which created the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (the Waterfront Commission), to regulate the harbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018 New Jersey passed a statute (Chapter 324) to withdraw from the compact and terminate the Waterfront Commission. This past March, just before the withdrawal was to take effect, New York sought leave to file a rare original action in the United States Supreme Court and a motion for preliminary relief to enjoin the withdrawal during the pendency of the action. The Supreme Court quickly granted preliminary relief and a few months later granted New York’s motion to file a bill of complaint. At the same time the Court granted the States’ joint motion to file cross-motions for judgment on the pleadings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week the New Jersey Globe<\/a> scooped NJ.com\/the Star-Ledger<\/em> in reporting that the United States had filed an amicus<\/em> brief in support of New Jersey’s position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kudos to the New Jersey Globe for reporting the story, but it got the procedural history wrong. The end of the Globe’s article states that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the bill of complaint to be filed “stay[ed] a Court of Appeals decision that sided with New Jersey.” This is inaccurate. What happened is that after Chapter 324 was passed the Waterfront Commission itself sued New Jersey in federal district court, which sided with the Waterfront Commission on the merits.((Waterfront Comm\u2019n of N.Y. Harbor v. Murphy<\/em>, 429 F. Supp. 3d 1, 3 (D.N.J. 2019).)) On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that the district court did not have jurisdiction over the State of New Jersey under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.((Waterfront Comm\u2019n of N.Y. Harbor v. Governor of N.J.<\/em>, 961 F.3d 234, 236 (3d Cir. 2020).)) The Supreme Court denied review. 1<\/a><\/sup> Thus, the Third Circuit’s holding that the district court does not have jurisdiction over the State of New Jersey in a suit brought by the Waterfront Commission remains in effect. The Supreme Court’s unquestioned jurisdiction to entertain a suit brought by the State of New York is an entirely different matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as I could find, NJ.com has only published one story with any level of detail on the merits of New Jersey’s attempt to withdraw from the compact, a 2021 editorial The only reason to break up the Waterfront Commission: Politics<\/a>. Not politics really though, the editorial contends that the New York Shipping Association and the “mobbed-up” International Longshoremen\u2019s Association have bought New Jersey. If NJ.com believes that, where are the hard-hitting investigative pieces, like those that lead to the creation of the Waterfront Commission in the first place, proving it to be so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know if New Jersey can or will root out any corruption infecting the 80% of harbor business that flows through the state, but I do not for one moment believe that New York’s opposition to the termination of the compact and the Waterfront Commission reflects only that concern. Like other bi-state agencies, the Waterfront Commission is a source of patronage spoils in the form of lucrative jobs and contracts split between the two governors, although I suspect that, as usual, New York gets more than its fair share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay Bohn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

September 8, 2022<\/p>\n

  1. Waterfront Comm\u2019n of N.Y. Harbor v. Murphy<\/em>, 142 S. Ct. 561 (2021). [↩<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In 1953, partially in response to a series of articles in The New York Sun that exposed the grip the mob had on commerce in the ports around New York City,((“On the Waterfront, a Mob Watchdog Is Fighting to Survive,” New York Times (online) January 17, 2018.)) the States of New York and New Jersey, … Continue reading “On the Waterfront (Commission)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-journalism","category-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}