‘Manipulative’: Delaware state senators and Gov. Matt Meyer trade insults over port board nominees

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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Which governor has the ability to appoint members to the Diamond State Port Corporation Board could soon be a matter for Delaware courts.

The General Assembly voted to seek an advisory opinion from the Delaware Supreme Court on whether then-Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, the former lieutenant governor who became governor for a two-week stint after now-Wilmington mayor John Carney resigned early, had the authority to make the appointments and whether Gov. Matt Meyer had the authority to withdraw them. The justices would have until March 10 to make a decision.

Meyer is also asking the justices to issue an advisory opinion on whether he would be required to officially recognize Hall-Long’s nominations if the state Senate confirms them in a future vote.

Senate leaders and Meyer’s office spent Thursday name calling and threatening legal action after the Senate Executive Committee held a hearing on Hall-Long’s board nominees.

Meyer requested those names be pulled back last week. In a letter sent to Senate leaders Thursday morning, he told lawmakers he had already withdrawn those names and threatened to file a lawsuit if they moved forward with confirmation proceedings.

Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola, D-Newark, said in a statement opening the committee hearing on the nominations that Meyer spent the past week asking the nominees to withdraw their names instead of submitting his own names. He also said the governor did not submit any legal argument to them until Wednesday.

“At first glance, the governor’s analysis, at best, conflicts with our own counsel’s findings and further analysis may well be warranted,” Sokola said. “But the delay in the governor’s outreach to us until after the nominees were scheduled for their hearing is regrettable and I believe a little manipulative.”

Spokespeople for Meyer called Sokola’s characterization dishonest and said he and Majority Leader Bryan Townsend should address current self-dealing and a lack of transparency.

“We would say that the one who is acting manipulative is the person acting behind closed doors to move the nominees through of an acting governor,” communications director Mila Myles said.

Meyer said in his letter to the Senate that it scheduled the hearing without prior notice to him or the public.

“I am deeply concerned by the hurried nature of the nominations and the Senate’s proceedings,” Meyer said.

At the end of her two-week stint as governor, Hall-Long nominated prominent labor leaders James Ascione, William Ashe and Curtis Linton, along with former Board of Pilot Commissioners Chair Robert Medd. She also re-nominated former Delaware Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock and the board’s former chairman.

The Meyer administration said earlier this month that allowing Hall-Long to make the recommendations would be a repudiation of voters who chose him over Hall-Long in last year’s Democratic primary by 10 percentage points. Meyer also beat former environmental protection chief Collin O’Mara in that primary, who garnered about 16% of the vote.

Senators and nominees took shots at Meyer’s administration throughout Thursday’s committee hearing. Ashe said he was approached by Merlino and asked to remove his name from consideration. The nominee said he was promised he would be renominated, but refused to retract his name unless he was promised that all of Hall-Long’s appointments would be honored.

“Why would I withdraw my name for something that I’m passionate about and something that I love?” he said. “Why would I withdraw my name for anything?”

Two other nominees also reported some kind of contact by Meyer officials.

Myles said the nominees were asked to withdraw their names because unelected officials “don’t get to make decisions that impact the taxpayers of Delaware.”

The Diamond State Port Corporation, a quasi-public entity that oversees the Port of Wilmington, has been seeking to build a $635 million container terminal at the Edgemoor property on the Delaware River. Sokola said in his committee remarks they were holding the hearing because the port project is one of the most critical infrastructure projects in the state’s history.

“It is a project that has spanned the terms of multiple governors, and certainly multiple members of this chamber,” he said. “It is a project that, if executed well, has the potential to transform Delaware’s economy and lift up Delaware’s working class.”

The nominees agreed it was urgent that confirmation hearings happen now because of contracts and deadlines already in place for the Edgemoor container terminal project.

Merlino said in a statement that terms of the majority of the seats in question on the port board have expired since 2022 and there’s been a lack of urgency to fill them until now.

Meyer will have four cabinet secretaries on the port board who are legislatively appointed.

The project to expand the port has been the subject of legal challenges from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PhilaPort) and ports affiliated with Holt Logistics Corp., whose affiliates operate terminals in Philadelphia and South Jersey. They sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after it had approved Delaware expansion plans. They argued that the new Edgemoor port would divert shipping to Delaware from Philadelphia.

U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney of the Western District of Pennsylvania blocked the project by invalidating key permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Kearney ruled last year that the Army Corps “arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its own procedures” in issuing the permits and ordered a closer, more in-depth review of the project.

Several nominees insisted that once the permit issue was resolved, the Edgemoor project was ready to move forward, despite any additional legal challenges from PhilaPort and Holt Logistics.