Justices drown the Waterfront

For 89 minutes yesterday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court’s justices buried 70 years of mob-busting by the bistate Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, which the nine seemed to be measuring for cement shoes before dumping it in the Hudson. Unless the robed ones were playing some elaborate game of misdirection, their questions and statements showed that their minds were decided before the lawyer for New York even started speaking: New Jersey is not bound to the joint agency and can leave whenever it chooses.

The debate is over the difference between a contract, which if silent on dissolution, can be ended by one party under common law, and a compact, which the two states entered in 1953. Or is a compact like the Waterfront Commission closer to a treaty between two equal sovereigns, such as a foreign country or an Indian nation? Treaties cannot be broken short of war, while contracts can be dissolved by one side.

And if Jersey (or New York) can quit whenever it fancies, then why did the two states ask Congress to write the compact into federal law, signed by Ike?

During the entire oral argument the words “crime” or “criminal” were only uttered seven times, “mob” just twice and “gangster” not once. Yes, we know the case is about states’ rights, not the workings of the commission, but with no commission, we will all pay a mob tax on shipping as the corrupt International Longshoremen’s Association will rule the docks once again. Why? Because Jersey pols are in the ILA’s pocket.

The commission’s hiring rules will be dropped by see-no-evil Trenton, ending the requirement for fair and nondiscriminatory awarding of lucrative jobs as payrolls will be padded with connected guys and we’ll be back to the bad old days, but just with fewer dead bodies laying around. Law enforcement in both states will have to recreate what the commission does.

When the court hands down its decision in the next few months, Jersey pols will cheer and so will the mob.