Why Should Delaware Care?
The board of the Diamond State Port Corporation has broad authority to negotiate the future of the Port of Wilmington, including its planned expansion in Edgemoor. Proponents of that project, including a slate of new port board nominees, say it would bring thousands of new jobs. But opponents point to environmental and economic concerns, including the project’s steep price tag to which taxpayers have already committed hundreds of millions of dollars.
Gov. Matt Meyer won a key victory Friday in a political showdown with Democratic lawmakers after the Delaware Supreme Court said he has the authority to withdraw political nominations made by his predecessor to a state board that oversees the Port of Wilmington.
The high court’s opinion is the latest chapter in years of acrimony surrounding the Port of Wilmington, as well as its embattled plan to expand through construction of a $635 million container terminal in Edgemoor.
While Meyer’s legal victory should put an end to a fight over former Gov. Bethany Hall-Long’s nominations to the state oversight board, his power struggle with lawmakers within his own party over the direction of the Port of Wilmington is likely to continue.
In a written statement following the court’s opinion, Democratic leaders in the Senate said they are reiterating what they called a simple request to Meyer that he “offer up his own slate of Port appointees” to serve on the state’s Diamond State Port Corporation board.
The governor’s office in its response appeared to take a swipe at past decisions made on behalf of the port, saying through a spokesman that “We need to move our port forward for the benefit of Delawareans, not for a small group of insiders.”
The comments come more than a month after tension between Meyer and lawmakers burst into public during a Senate hearing to consider Hall-Long’s nominations, which included labor leaders and former Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock.
The day of the hearing, Democratic Senators called Meyer “manipulative,” “anti-collaborative,” and silent on what they said was “one of the most critical infrastructure investments in recent Delaware history” – a reference to the state’s plans to build a container port terminal in Edgemoor.
In response, the governor’s office said in a statement that same day that Senate leaders had spent their time “name-calling Governor Meyer and attempting to change the subject instead of addressing the lack of transparency and self-dealing that is currently going on.”
In all, the verbal assaults – a rarity in Delaware where outward collegiality has been the norm – brought forth Meyer’s strained relationships with Senate leadership and with certain labor leaders.
Nominate or appoint?
The Supreme Court’s opinion followed competing legal arguments made late last month by attorneys representing Meyer and Senate Democrats that largely hinged on a curious debate around the legal definitions of “nominate” and “appoint.”
Attorneys for Senate Democrats argued that Hall-Long’s names for the port board were legal “appointments,” meaning that the governor had no jurisdiction after they were submitted to the Senate.
Meyer’s attorneys countered that they were “nominations,” and therefore the governor had the authority to rescind the names until an official gubernatorial commissioning that would follow Senate confirmation.
In their opinion, the judges concluded that “Hall-Long’s submissions are nominations and that Governor Meyer has the power to withdraw nominations before the Senate confirms them.”
How it happened
The showdown over the port nominees occurred during a time of uncertainty for the Port of Wilmington.
Last fall, a federal judge invalidated a key permit the state needs to construct the new Edgemoor container terminal, leaving in limbo hundreds of millions of dollars that the federal and state governments had committed to the project.
Nevertheless, state officials pressed forward and expedited a transfer of nearly $200 million for the Edgemoor project in January, about a week before Meyer came into office.
Around the same time, Hall-Long made her nominations to the port board. The names didn’t become public until they arrived at the Senate on the final day of her two-week interim term.
She became governor only because her predecessor stepped down two weeks early to become mayor of Wilmington.
Those events also occurred four months after Meyer had defeated Hall-Long to become the Democrats’ candidate for governor following a bitter primary election campaign.
The day after Hall-Long sent her nominations to the Senate, Meyer took office and among his first acts was to send a letter to the Delaware Senate, contending that he had withdrawn the names
In response, Senate Democrats, led by Senate President Pro Tem David Sokola, asserted that the nominees were viable, sparking the fight that ultimately led to the Delaware Supreme Court.
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