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Annual Request for a Pay Raise
It's that time of year when the Chief Justice of the United States posts the year-end report, which has become, in large part, an annual request for a pay increase. At least, that's what Justice Rehnquist advocated for 20 years, according to this article from The Washington Post (1/1/07). And Rehnquist's protege, Chief Justice Roberts now continues that tradition. As the Post article describes, Roberts argues that salaries for federal judges haven't increased at the same pace as other workers (and indeed, have declined) and that today's federal judges make less than half of the deans and professors at the nation's top law schools. And of course, to add insult to injury, Supreme Court clerks are often given signing bonuses that may exceed a federal judge's annual salary.
Still, many feel that Roberts hasn't made a persuasive enough case for a judicial pay raise. At
least Orin Kerr has this to say:
First, while I'm sympathetic to the Chief Justice's basic argument, I think these three comparisons are fairly weak. Law dean and top prof salaries have gone up a great deal in the last 35 years in response to the changing nature of deanships and a developing market for "star" faculty members. Neither change has an analog in the nature of judgeships. Similarly, the decline in judicial pay in real terms since 1969 occurred largely during the inflationary period of 1969-1975; since 1975, salaries have stayed roughly within the same zone in real terms. Finally, the higher percentage of federal judges from the public sector could have many causes, of which judicial salaries is only one, and I'm not sure the change is necessarily a bad thing.
In Are Judges Undercompensated?, National Review (1/1/07), Matthew Franck doesn't buy Roberts' argument about a constitutional crisis arising from federal judges departing the bench in search of higher pay. Franck says that there's simply no evidence that departures to the private sector impact the integrity of the judiciary.
I simply don't think that increasing judges' salaries will make all that much difference. Those judges who leave the bench aren't looking for a $50,000 pay raise (which, realistically speaking, is the most I'd ever see them getting). Rather, they're going for megabucks, like former Judge Luttig, who left the 4th Circuit for a job at Boeing last year. So an increase won't help improve retention rates. Moreover, money won't keep people on the bench who are unhappy with their positions. As this piece points out, $200,000 isn't enough money to keep young associates at a law firm. So why would it suffice to keep a judge on the bench who doesn't want to be there?
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on January 2, 2007 at 07:49 PM | Permalink
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