Posted on 01/01/2006 7:01:59 AM PST by Brilliant
WASHINGTON - In his first year-end assessment of the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts urged Congress to increase judicial pay to help keep good judges on the bench and to recruit new ones.
Roberts, who succeeded the late William Rehnquist, warned Congress that judges' pay is an issue that is driving them off the bench and deterring qualified lawyers from throwing their names into consideration for judgeships.
"A strong and independent judiciary is not something that, once established, maintains itself," Roberts wrote. "It is instead a trust that every generation is called upon to preserve, and the values it secures can be lost as readily through neglect as direct attack."
In many of his 19 year-end reports, Rehnquist put judicial pay raises at the top of his wish list for Congress' consideration, once noting wryly that he realized he was "beating a dead horse."
Roberts opened his report on the federal courts by insisting that he didn't want to seem presumptuous after just three months on the job. But, like Rehnquist, he did not mince words on the pay issue and called it a "direct threat to judicial independence."
He said judges are leaving the bench in greater numbers than ever before, compared to the 1960s when only a handful of federal judges retired or resigned. Since 1990, he said, 92 judges have left the bench, 59 of them to go into more lucrative private practice. In the past five years, 37 judges have left, nine of them last year, Roberts said.
Real pay for judges has declined substantially, the chief justice said. "If Congress gave judges a raise of 30 percent tomorrow, judges would — after adjusting for inflation — be making about what judges made in 1969," he wrote. "This is not fair to our nation's federal judges and should not be allowed to continue."
Roberts said judges understand the difficult funding choices Congress must make. "But the courts play an essential role in ensuring that we live in a society governed by the rule of law," he wrote. "In order to preserve the independence of our courts, we must ensure that the judiciary is provided the tools to do the job."
The chief justice also asked Congress to help the judiciary ward off its landlord, the General Services Administration. Roberts said the courts spent 16 percent of its 2005 budget on rent, while the Justice Department paid only 3 percent of its budget to the GSA.
In fiscal year 2005, Roberts said, the judiciary paid $926 million to GSA in rent. The GSA's actual cost for providing space to the courts was only $426 million, he said.
It is unfair for the courts to pay more than other agencies, Roberts said. "The federal judiciary cannot continue to serve as a profit center for GSA," he said.
Roberts also urged Congress to pay for increased security for judges, noting the murders in early 2005 of the mother and husband of a federal judge in Chicago.
The year-end report showed that the Supreme Court's docket continues to decrease while federal courts across the nation are experiencing record increases.
Bankruptcy filings skyrocketed to nearly 1.8 million, largely because of the rush to beat a new law that went into effect this year that limits such cases, he said.
Filings in the appellate courts rose 9 percent to an all-time high of more than 68,000 in 2005. Roberts said the numbers would have been higher if Hurricane Katrina hadn't disrupted operations at the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Court of Appeals in September.
I suppose they could just decree Congress to raise their pay.
yep, he's a bush appointee...............
They've already ruled that Congress cannot reduce their pay.
If they do not like the pay, quit and get a job. Those idiots all have to be carried out by the grim reaper, they so love power. Sad.
"They've already ruled that Congress cannot reduce their pay."
Yes, so Congress has been warned!!!! Think maybe the liberals can win back Congress with the platform of a pay increase for the judiciary????
Why is this bad?
Whatever judges are being paid now seems to have nothing to do with their quality. Will a higher paid judge be any guarantee of a less liberal judge than a lower paid one? If so then at what pay-scale do we start to get judges who can interpret the Constitution as it was written?
"In order to preserve the independence of our courts, we must ensure that the judiciary is provided the tools to do the job."
We've all seen what an "independent court" has done to society. Insulated from the very people they are sworn to protect nine black robes, unelected, unaccountable, and with a lifetime job, have changed society in unprecedented way over the years. Only a masochistic society would pay their overlords more to abuse them.
Even (some of) the Supreme Court seems bad to me.
Eminent domain---to help goverment (and select business interests) generate revenue???
The government is supposed to be working FOR the people, not working them OVER!
Well said!
There is zero shortage of lawyers wanting to be judges. One great incentive is the Federal pension that comes for minimal years of service. Keep your eye on the pensions, not the salaries
State pensions are also good
Ah, ....That means that if we pay more we get better senators, and schools? Haven't we tried that? Maybe we just need to pay jurors more and get better juries.
Exactly and not taking over the country. Also, we get 30% raises, just maybe you will too.
Gimme a break!
The last ten years have seen the utter destruction of the Constitution. Why reward the destroyers?
Hire some freaking wetbacks at $4 an hour. The destruction will continue but we'll save millions.
Most judges on the highest levels have a comparatively cushy job.....aides, assistants. clerks, interns to do the heavy lifting/researching/writing. Plus loyal, idolizing old beater secretaries to fetch the coffee and buy the wife's birthday presents.
Leni
Right, what is needed is a system of "merit pay."
Fed Judges make over $150,000, that's pretty damn cushy. Maybe this is naive, but US Marines are paid McDonalds wages because they want people who are enthusiastic about the service and not the money, why should judges and politicians be so different? We don't elect them to turn them into millionaires.
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