Regarding New Jersey’s wrongheaded effort to quit the bistate mob-busting Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, a matter New York is suing over at the U.S. Supreme Court, we see a pattern.
On Aug. 17, we called out Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy for leaving empty his state’s seat on the agency since May despite a March order from the nation’s highest court that “New Jersey is hereby enjoined from taking action to withdraw unilaterally from the Compact or terminate the Commission pending disposition of the case.” It must have stung, as that same day Murphy said he was picking former prosecutor Jennifer Davenport and her name would be “formally submitted at the Senate’s next quorum.”
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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy speaks to reporters during a briefing in Trenton, N.J., Feb. 7, 2022. (Seth Wenig/AP)
On Oct. 3, we noted that two Senate quorum days had come and gone without any action on Davenport. Later that very day Murphy sent her name to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which handles all nominations. Credit two for two to the Daily News.
Last Thursday, the judiciary panel took up 14 nominations, including two for the N.J. Supreme Court, and approved them, but no Davenport. Then this past Monday, the full Senate confirmed all 14 nominees, but still nothing on Davenport.
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Being without a Garden State commissioner means that the Waterfront Commission, which typically meets twice a month, hasn’t convened since May 9. At least 10 sessions haven’t happened; no one working for the agency has been hired or fired, and no budget has been adopted, even though the fiscal year began on July 1. Most importantly, no mobbed-up longshoremen have been removed from the docks, the agency’s prime mission since 1953.
We hope the pattern of our editorials prompting immediate action continues and Jersey confirms Davenport today, even though the Senate’s next quorum isn’t until next week. Either way, when New York files its Supreme Court brief tomorrow, Albany must tell the nine justices that Jersey has been willfully interfering with the commission’s ability to function for months in direct violation of the high court’s order.