War between the states
The “Hamilton” crack that “everything is legal in New Jersey” notwithstanding, our neighbor has ratified the Constitution like every other state. The law of the land applies there, just as it does on this side of the Hudson. That’s the core of the case that Gov. Hochul and Attorney General Tish James filed yesterday against the Garden State in the U.S. Supreme Court. Trenton is trying to wriggle out a bistate compact that set up the mob-busting Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. This voluntary marriage, solemnized in 1953 by both legislatures and both governors and Congress and Ike, can’t be unilaterally undone by one spouse.
Doing so violates the U.S. Constitution’s compacts clause, the contract clause and the supremacy of Congress, as the Waterfront Commission is written into federal law. As New York’s legal papers make clear, the agreement “expressly requires that any changes...be effectuated by action of the Legislature of either State concurred in by the Legislature of the other.” Didn’t happen here. In the case of New York vs. New Jersey, the high court needs to move quickly, as Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy says he’s quitting come March 28 and turning over enforcement powers on the docks to his state police.
The reason the Waterfront Commission is still needed was on the Daily News front page yesterday, as Clayton Guse documented how more than 200 longshoremen are making $400,000 a year or more under a sweetheart deal between the mob-tainted International Longshoremen’s Association and the New York Shipping Association that has some guys working 189 hours a week (even though there are only 168 hours in a week, even in Jersey).
A half-century after “The Godfather” premiered, organized crime remains very real. All Five Families have their fingers in the port, according to the sworn statement of Waterfront Commission Executive Director Walter Arsenault that was taken last week and presented to the Supreme Court yesterday.
New York has the winning case on the merits. The Nine must take the case, and do the right thing.