January 2, 2007
It’s Bushwood memberships and “Flying Wasps” for federal judges
Now I don’t want to be hearing any more of this nonsense about activist judges plaguing our federal court system. Chief Justice John Roberts just issued his annual report and he spent the whole time addressing the “Constitutional crisis” of low judicial pay. Roberts had no time for any issues this year besides getting some extra green for his peoples who haven’t had a raise as often as they’d like.
Now it’s true that pay for federal judges is not keeping pace with inflation, but it’s not as if our judges are naked under their robes because they can’t afford clothes. We all know they’re naked because it’s so darned comfortable to adjudicate in nothing but silk.
But enough of that imagery, and back to the issue of judicial pay. District judges earn the same $165,200 a year that members of Congress receive. Judges on the higher courts earn even more, right up to the $212,100 Roberts gets as Chief Justice. While this isn’t crazy buy yourself a different grill for every day of the week money, it’s well more than the average American’s salary and more than enough to live on.
The judges of the Federal Courts definitely deserve as much of a raise of the rest of the workers in the economy get, and lately that isn’t keeping up with inflation. There’s no reason their salaries should be falling behind, but still members of the federal bench really can’t expect to be receiving the same million dollar salaries some trial lawyers pocket each year.
Actually, the judges aren’t asking for that much. They realize there’s no chance of this and just want to be paid at a rate similar to top tier legal academics. If that were done, it would put them in the range of $250,000 to $325,000 per year. I’m sure most people wouldn’t be opposed to doubling their pay either.
With two wars to pay for and Our Fine President’s tax cuts to make permanent, we probably don’t have quite as much money for the judges as they’d like. Hopefully the lack of a raise large enough to buy them a yacht of their own wont chase them back to private practice or the halls of academia. If it does, we’ll have the fun of many more federal court nominations gumming up our divided congress, but hopefully we’ll find people for the jobs who want to serve their country and realize that doing that might also mean forgoing some of the financial treasure they could accumulate in different lines of work.
After all, what other job allows you to wear black robes, bang a gavel, decide the nuances of law and provide those annoying checks on Congress and the President.