Might the courts save New Yorkers from the folly of congestion pricing tolls? That prospect, however faint, looks a little brighter now that the United Federation of Teachers, of all groups, has filed suit to halt New York’s attempted money grab against tri-state area motorists. The filing in federal court contends that trying to sock drivers to cover the state transit agency’s budget gap breaches the Constitution’s ban on states burdening interstate commerce.

The lawsuit, joined by Staten Island’s borough president, follows a suit by New Jersey, whose drivers face the biggest hit from the tolls, which put a hurdle on traffic between the Garden and Empire states. The constitutional case against the tolls has precedent. The Supreme Court, as recently as 2018, has affirmed that states “may not discriminate against” or “impose undue burdens on” interstate commerce. Is there any more blasted a burden than a toll?

The teachers union suit notes that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, a bedrock of federalism, grants Congress power to regulate trade between the states and, as the suit puts it, “directly limits the power of the States” to interfere with business crossing state lines. A state policy — like, say, congestion tolls on a state border — runs afoul of the Constitution, the suit says, if it “imposes a burden” on commerce that is “incommensurate with the local benefits secured.”

The teachers, who live in Staten Island and New Jersey, say they would be harmed “economically and environmentally” by the tolls of up to $15 each way to enter lower Manhattan between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. Those are prime commuting hours for teachers, and countless others, who are being asked to subsidize the budgetary and managerial catastrophe at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose deficit is expected to hit $900 million a year.

Some “1.8 million outer-borough and out-of-state drivers and residents who enter Manhattan each day,” the suit reckons, “will bear the burden” of the proposed tolling scheme. In addition to costing these tri-state area residents more money to get to work, the teachers contend, congestion pricing tolls would lead to “redirected congestion and pollution.” It all, they say, “far outweighs the regional benefit to traffic in Manhattan.”

The teachers’ outrage is no surprise, as the state moves to levy the tolls by Memorial Day. The congestion toll, the Daily News reports, “comes on top of the long-standing costs of parking and other tolls on bridges and tunnels.” Even school buses would be charged under the plan. What makes the tolls, meant to generate up to $1 billion a year for the MTA, especially egregious, though, is that the transit agency wouldn’t need the money were it run properly.

Feature the fact that the MTA admits it is losing some $690 million a year because it is unable, or unwilling, to police turnstile jumping. Law-abiding New Yorkers are galled by the awareness that paying a subway or bus fare has become strictly optional due to lax enforcement. Thank Attorney General James for coming up in 2020 with the libel that police had “illegally targeted communities of color on NYC subways” by enforcing “fare evasion laws.”

Ms. James’ insinuation flummoxed the MTA, controlled by Democratic appointees. By 2022, as fare evasion reached epidemic levels, the MTA chairman, Janno Lieber, announced a “fairness” panel that was tasked with fixing the problem of fare beating “while ensuring that particular groups are not disproportionately impacted” by police “enforcement efforts.” They’re still trying to figure out what every other New York gets clear as day.

Cushy deals with the MTA’s unions also cost the transit agency hundreds of millions in needless expenses each year. Hence the attempt to force hardworking commuters to pick up the slack. The teachers’ union isn’t standing for it, and the law looks favorable to their cause. If their suit makes headway, these plucky New York City school teachers will have taught New York State and the MTA’s unelected bureaucrats a lesson in Constitutional Law 101.