Assembly votes 75-0 to pull out of bi-state Waterfront Commission
TRENTON A bill to pull New Jersey out of the bi-state Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor now goes to Gov. Chris Christie to sign, after the Assembly approved it 75-0 this afternoon following the Senate's overwhelming approval in December.
The author of the bill, Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), whose district includes the Elizabeth shipping terminal complex, says the 52-year-old commission has outlived its usefulness, and has even impeded commerce. He dismissed assertions that the state could not quit the commission, which is funded by a 2 percent payroll tax paid by shipping companies that employ longshoremen.
"The compact is a contract between both states with no penalty clause for unilateral withdrawal," Lesniak wrote in an email following the bill's passage. "Under my legislation all authority of the (Waterfront Commission) will be transferred to the State Police. The 2% will be collected for its expanded operations in taking over the WC operations as they apply to NJ port commerce."
The waterfront regulatory body was created in 1953 by acts of the New York and New Jersey legislatures and Congress and commission officials insist bi-state legislation is required to disband it. Even if it were legal for New Jersey to unilaterally pull out of the bi-state commission, officials said, it would not be in the state's own interest.
"This is the first shot across the bow to let the commission know that we don't want anybody impeding commerce down at the port."
"With New Jersey's withdrawal from the Compact, New York would be left with unfettered discretion to establish fiscal policies without any guidance or oversight from New Jersey, and without any obligation to ensure that such policies are consistent New Jersey laws and practices," read a statement from the commission. "It is for this very reason that a state cannot unilaterally withdraw from a bi-state compact, and the proposed bill is unquestionably unconstitutional."
Christie has not weighed in on the bill, and his spokesman did not respond to a request for comment following today's vote. New Jersey's one commissioner on the two-member panel, former Morris County Prosecutor Michael Murphy, is a Christie appointee.
The Manhattan-based commission was created in 1953 to keep the docks free of organized crime in the wake of revelations that the International Longshoremen's Association union was controlled by the mob, which routinely extorted kickbacks from dockworkers.
In an ongoing case led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark in conjunction with the Waterfront Commission, several union officials and a soldier in the Genovese crime family have pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges.
The ILA and the New York Shipping Association, an employers group, put aside their usual differences to join in a 2013 suit charging the commission with hindering the hiring of dockworkers and thus threatening to cause a labor shortage at the East Coast's biggest port, which generates billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the region's economy. The assertion was rejected by the commission and a federal judge who dismissed the suit, which is now under appeal.
Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Union), the Assembly minority leader, told fellow lawmakers just before the vote that the commission was "an anachronism." In a phone interview later, Bramnick said any constitutional questions regarding the commission's break up could be overcome.
"This is the first shot across the bow to let the commission know that we don't want anybody impeding commerce down at the port," he said.
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