By james art 
Matt Meyer sworn in as Delaware’s 76th governor
Matt Meyer was sworn in as Delaware’s 76th governor on Tuesday. 21.01.25
- Delaware’s new governor, Matt Meyer, is facing challenges from within his own party for control of the Port of Wilmington.
- Outgoing Gov. Bethany Hall-Long made last-minute appointments to the port corporation’s board, which Meyer is trying to overturn.
- A bill introduced in the state Senate would further limit Meyer’s influence by removing his ability to appoint the board’s chairman.
- The political maneuvers come at a critical time for the port, which has faced financial difficulties and legal setbacks in recent years.
This story was produced by Spotlight Delaware as part of a partnership with Delaware Online/The News Journal. For more information about Spotlight Delaware, visit www.spotlightdelaware.org.
After taking office Tuesday, Gov. Matt Meyer took charge of the future of the Port of Wilmington, but his influence over the embattled facility — and the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars devoted to its expansion — is already contested.
Those challenges become the first political showdown of Delaware’s newly created 2025 legislative session, pitting the self-proclaimed outsider governor against leading state lawmakers in his own Democratic Party.
In the previous week, two Delaware Democrats took steps that appeared to limit the new governor’s ability to shape the board of the Diamond State Port Corp., the state entity responsible for overseeing operations at the public, privately run port.
The first occurred on Jan. 15, when Senate Majority Leader Brian Townsend sponsored a bill that would partially strip Mayer of the power to appoint the port corporation’s board chairman.
If lawmakers pass the bill and manage to overcome a potential veto, the powerful chairman position — held for years by former Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock — would instead be decided by the port corporation’s board members.
Asked last week why he sponsored the bill, Townsend said via text that the state-owned Port Corporation should be run more like private companies that allow boards of directors to choose their own chairmen. He also stressed that the bill not only removes Mayer’s ability to nominate a speaker, but also the Senate’s ability to confirm the selection.
Finally, Townsend said the governor along with the Delaware Senate will still “have full say” on who serves as regular members of the port corporation’s board of directors.
But for Mayer, that may not be the case.
Distance shot of an opponent
On Monday, one day before Meyer’s inauguration, then-Gov. Bethany Hall-Long nominated a slate of five new members to the Port Corporation Board. The nominees include Bullock, three prominent labor leaders — James Ascione, William Ash and Curtis Linton — and former Board of Pilot Commissioners Chairman Robert Mead.
It was a surprise move that was widely seen as a political repudiation of Meyer, who just four months earlier had defeated Hall-Long to become the Democratic nominee for governor after a bitter election campaign.
Hall-Long was able to serve two weeks as governor in January after former Gov. John Carney resigned early to become mayor of Wilmington. As the state’s lieutenant governor at the time of the resignation, Hall-Long succeeded Carney.
Hall-Long, through her staff, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Asked about the nominations Tuesday, Meyer said he plans to withdraw the names from consideration. He subsequently sent a letter to Delaware lawmakers saying the names had been withdrawn.
But the question of whether he can take such a step after the Senate has already received the nominations appears to be legally unsettled. It’s an issue that the Senate’s top Democrat said in a letter to Mayer had prompted a “legal investigation” by his team.
After the survey, Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola, D-Newark, said he believed Hall-Long’s picks for the port corporation board were “viable candidates.”
“Whether you oppose the process or individual candidates based on their perceived merits, we invite you to offer your own nominations for Senate consideration — a step that is well within your rights as governor,” Sokola said in the letter.
On Wednesday, Meyer spokesman Nick Merlino said Senate leadership told the governor’s office that Socola’s legal team reached its conclusion based on rulings written by state Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania and Wyoming.
A spokesman for Sokola did not immediately respond to an email Wednesday afternoon asking about those courts’ opinions.
It was not immediately clear whether Mayer would nominate new people to the board, seek a court ruling on the matter or do nothing. What is clear is that his administration views Hall-Long’s nominations as an insult.
In an interview with Spotlight Delaware on Wednesday, Merlino said “those who lost the election can’t make appointments.”
“It’s unprecedented for someone who lost a gubernatorial election to make appointments to a board that spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Delaware’s legal code states that Diamond State Port Corp. board members who are not part of the governor’s cabinet can serve three years after a gubernatorial nomination and subsequent confirmation by the state Senate.
Although Hall-Long’s nominations came as a surprise to outsiders, Townsend said he was aware she was considering a similar move when he introduced his bill a week earlier. He did not respond to a question about whether he would vote to approve Hall-Long’s nominations.
“I introduced (Senate Bill 44) with the understanding that Gov. Hall-Long is considering the nominations, but it’s a separate initiative that was previously discussed,” he said.
Bullock also seems to have been aware of Hall-Long’s surprise.
Earlier this month, during the last meeting of Diamond State Port Corp. board members appointed by Carney, Bullock told Spotlight Delaware that his next job will be one where he continues to interact with the media.
Bullock did not say what job he expects to take.
Asked Tuesday if he thought the Delaware Senate would confirm him to sit again on the port corporation’s board, Bullock responded by linking the issue to organized labor, saying his “only interest is creating thousands of good-paying jobs” at the port Wilmington and the proposed Edgemoor expansion site.
“What I want to see is Delaware merchants building a port at Edgemoor. And many more longshoremen and others working in the busy ports of Wilmington and Edgemoor,” he said in a text message.
Handing Oversight to Mayer?
Meyer’s recent challenges come at a time of uncertainty for the Port of Wilmington, a hub of high-paying blue-collar jobs that has suffered financial turmoil in recent years.
Last fall, a federal judge dealt a blow to the port’s ambitious growth plans, ruling that the permit the state needed to build a new container terminal was invalid.
The decision also put on hold hundreds of millions of dollars that the federal and state governments had committed to the container terminal project planned on the site of a former chemical plant in Edgemoor.
While Carney doggedly pursued the project in the face of lawsuits and community opposition, Meyer has not announced his intentions regarding the long-delayed plans to build the Edgemoor Terminal.
Carney appointees to Diamond State Port Corp. board also seemed uncertain about Mayer’s plans for the port during their last meeting earlier this month.
At one point during the meeting, board member Mike Begato voiced his displeasure with a proposal to create a committee to oversee the spending of taxpayer dollars committed to the Edgemoor construction project.
How could the Carney-appointed board transfer oversight duties when they didn’t know who Meyer would appoint to sit on the next board, he asked.
“The majority of these decisions have been made by this board, and I think someone from this board should be appointed,” Begato said.
In response, Bullock assured Begato that he (Begato) would be nominated to serve on a new board under Mayer.
“You don’t know that,” Begato said skeptically — possibly a reference to Meyer’s strained relationship with organized labor in the state.
Five days after the exchange, Townsend introduced his bill, which would strip Mayer and the Senate of the ability to choose the chairman of the port corporation’s board. Townsend said Delaware labor leaders support the bill.
What’s next for Edgemoor?
After the port corporation meeting earlier this month, Bullock said in an interview with Spotlight Delaware that he was confident that “in a few months” Delaware could get back the federal permit that would allow the state to dig a channel in the Delaware River to which will become the berths of the new container terminal.
But to do that, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates dredging in navigable waters, will have to consider a federal judge’s reasons for revoking the original permit.
Those reasons were outlined in a sharply worded decision by Judge Mark A. Kearney last October, in which he said federal regulators failed to take into account the safety and maritime congestion impacts of a recently dredged channel to the Edgemoor terminal.
“We conclude that the largely non-existent consideration of the public interest factor of safety is arbitrary and capricious,” said Kearney, whose ruling followed a legal challenge to the permit by competing ports along the Delaware River.
Get stories like this delivered to your email inbox by signing up for the free newsletter at spotlightdelaware.org/subscribe.