The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, created more than six decades ago to fight the sort of seaport mob control depicted in “On the Waterfront,” has filed a lawsuit seeking to ensure that it won't be dissolved or have its authority cut in half.

The commission is seeking to enjoin New Jersey from enforcing legislation that would eliminate the commission and have the State Police control law enforcement, at least on the west side of the Hudson River.

The commission was created in 1953 by a joint legislative enactment of New York and New Jersey, and approved by Congress and the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower. The states moved to create the commission after a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles in the New York Sun describing how organized crime controlled nearly all aspects of operations at the region's ports.

The creation of the commission was the inspiration behind the 1954 film “On the Waterfront,” which won eight Academy Awards, including best actor for Marlon Brando.

Now-former Gov. Chris Christie, on his last day in office Monday, signed legislation, without comment, that would allow the state to withdraw from the interstate compact that created the commission.

The law requires that the New Jersey State Police handle the duties associated with screening the employees who work on the docks. These responsibilities would include processing licensing applications by would-be employees and companies seeking to work at the ports, and supervise the hiring of longshoremen, checkers and pier guards in the ports on the New Jersey side.

“While it's served a purpose in the past, the commission and its restrictive oversight of hiring practices at the port has now become an impediment to economic growth,” Assemblyman Thomas Giblin, D-Essex, one of the chief sponsors, previously said.

“We cannot allow this at one of the busiest ports in the country,” Giblin said.

Christie had vetoed identical legislation in 2015, siding with the commission, which argued that New Jersey could not unilaterally withdraw from the compact.

The commission filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New Jersey a day after Christie, a Republican, signed the bill, naming the state's new governor as of Tuesday, Democrat Philip Murphy, as the lead defendant. The lawsuit has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, sitting in Newark.

The commission has retained New York's Proskauer Rose as its counsel.

“The commission's current administration has worked tirelessly to stamp out corruption and racketeering at the port, as well as to combat discriminatory hiring practices, but there is more work to be done,” the complaint says.

“New Jersey lacks the power to withdraw from the commission and its compact,” it adds.

Indeed, for the commission to be dissolved entirely, New York would have to pass identical legislation, which in turn would need to be approved by the federal government.

“The commission has worked to effectuate a dramatic change in the culture of an industry which has been chronically plagued, historically and currently, by organized crime and labor racketeering,” the commission alleges.

The commission is in charge of virtually all operations of 1,500 miles of port activities from Westchester County to Nassau County in New York, and in Bergen, Hudson, Union and Essex counties in New Jersey.

The lead attorney for the commission, Michael Cardozo, said the commission felt the need to move quickly.

“The statute goes into effect almost immediately, within 30 days,” Cardozo said. “The major point is that under a compact like this, a state can't unilaterally withdraw.”

Representatives for Murphy did not respond to requests for comment.

Leland Moore, a spokesman for recently confirmed New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, declined to comment.