Application of State Law that Conflicts with an Interstate Compact
Where state law and a compact conflict, courts are required under the Supremacy Clause (for compacts with consent) and as a matter of contract law to apply the terms and conditions of the compact to a given case. The fact that a judge may not like the effect of a compact or believes that other state laws can produce a more desirable outcome is irrelevant. The compact controls over individual state law and must be given full force and effect by the courts. For a full discussion of giving compacts effect over conflicting state law, see Buenger, et al., supra, at 54–66.
PRACTICE NOTE:
Because the ICJ is the subject of Congressional consent, under the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution the consent of Congress “transforms the States’ agreement into federal law . . .” Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 440 (1981). Although most clearly articulated in Cuyler v. Adams, the rule that congressional consent transforms the states’ agreement into federal law has been recognized for some time. Id. at 438 n.7. Having the status of federal law, under the Supremacy Clause (U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2), the provisions of the ICJ and ICJ Rules take precedence over conflicting state laws.
Many compacts are silent about how states may apply their own state law. In cases involving such compacts, courts use different analyses that generally reach the same holding. For example, the Ninth Circuit held that states may not apply state law unless the specific state law to be applied is specifically preserved in the compact. Seattle Master Builders Ass’n v. Pac. Nw. Elec. Power & Conserv. Planning Council, 786 F.2d 1359, 1364 (9th Cir. 1986). Similarly, the Eighth Circuit held that Nebraska did not have the unilateral right to exercise a veto over actions of an interstate commission created by a compact, reasoning:
“[W]hen enacted, a compact constitutes not only law, but a contract which may not be amended, modified, or otherwise altered without the consent of all parties. It, therefore, appears settled that one party may not enact legislation which would impose burdens upon the compact absent the concurrence of the other signatories.”
Nebraska v. Cent. Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Comm’n, 207 F.3d 1021, 1026 (8th Cir. 2000).
Occasionally, courts will invoke the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution in analyzing whether a state may apply its own law to a compact. See, e.g., U.S. Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1, 25-33 (1977) (Contracts Clause applied to state’s obligation to bondholders in connection with interstate compact); Wroblewski v. Commonwealth, 809 A.2d 247, 258 (Pa. 2002) (terms of an interstate compact contain the substantive obligations of the parties as is the case with all contracts; Contracts Clause of the Federal Constitution protects compacts from impairment by the states). Some courts use a contractual analysis without reference to the Contracts Clause of the federal or any state constitution. E.g., McComb v. Wambaugh, 934 F.2d 474, 479 (3d Cir. 1991) (“Having entered into a contract, a participant state may not unilaterally change its terms. A Compact also takes precedence over statutory law in member states.”).
By entering a compact, the member states contractually agree that the terms and conditions of the compact supersede conflicting statutory and regulatory state considerations. In effect, compacts create collective governing tools to address multilateral issues and, as such, they govern the multilateral contingent on the collective will of the member states, not the will of any single member state. This point is critically important to the success and uniform application of the ICJ.
PRACTICE NOTE:
Most compacts expressly preserve some state law or state authority, such as the State Constitutions as provided in Article XIII of the ICJ, and states frequently enact statutes and regulations that support and complement their administration of a compact. Such action in “approbation” rather than “reprobation” of a compact has been approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. See Olin v. Kitzmiller, 259 U.S. 260 (1922), in which the Court held that amended language to a compact by a member state which does not “impair” or “conflict” with existing compact language is permissible.