Saturday, June 14, 2008

This is amusing. :S

This is the kind of thing that drives me batty. When the Mayor is
demanding a minimum 7% cut in all city services, a judge, who is
little more than a well connected lawyer, would have the audacity to
do this?!?

From the WSJ:

"Checks and Judicial Balances
June 14, 2008; Page A10

Here's a weekend daydream: What if on Monday, you walked into work and
gave yourself a raise? That's what happened in New York this week,
when a state judge ordered the Governor and state legislature to pony
up bigger paychecks for him and the rest of his judicial friends. It's
the perfect plan – if only it weren't for that inconvenient detail
about separation of powers.

The ruling, by New York Supreme Court Justice Edward Lehner, commands
the state Senate and Assembly to pass a pay raise for judges in the
next 90 days – and make some provision to retroactively compensate
them for the lean years. The four plaintiffs in the suit suggested
$600,000 each would do the trick. Multiplied out for the entire New
York Judiciary, that would put New York taxpayers on the line for $700
million.

New York Governor David Paterson was unamused. Only the state
legislature has the power to set judicial salaries, his office rightly
pointed out in a statement. The judge's decision "flies in the face of
the state constitution."

There's more where that came from. Still pending before Judge Lehner
is a separate suit brought by New York State Chief Judge Judith Kaye,
who has retained New York attorney Bernard Nussbaum to sue the
Governor and legislature for a raise for all 3,000 New York judges.
Judge Lehner will thus be expected to rule in a case in which he is
effectively a plaintiff, and in which he is also judging a complaint
by his judicial superior.

The suits are necessary, say the judges, because legislators will
raise their salaries only when they also raise their own, a fact which
has left paychecks unaltered for a decade. That, in Judge Lehner's
words, represents an "unconstitutional interference upon the
independence of the judiciary." After a decade of inflation, judges
say their salaries have been effectively cut – something which is
prohibited by law.

At those rates, they say they now make less than what's pocketed by
first-year associates at big law firms. But few would consider their
salaries fodder for Oliver Twist. Chief Judge Kaye makes the most, at
$156,000 a year, while others earn about $136,700. By comparison,
Members of the U.S. Congress now make $169,300 a year. A memorandum of
law filed on behalf of Governor Paterson and state Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver in Judge Kaye's case notes that judges are already
extremely well paid relative to the state workforce.

We have some sympathy for the judges, most of whom could make far more
in private life. But then they also have extended tenure. To attract
better people to the bench, we'd be willing to swap higher pay for
term limits. New York judges may have a legitimate complaint about
salary erosion, but they are exceeding their own legal authority by
asserting the right to overrule the elected branches and set their own
pay – about as basic a legislative function as one can imagine.

Most judges choose their robes not for the salary but for the honor
and significant authority, and, dare we say, the chance to serve the
public. The hours are good, the work is interesting and they don't
suffer the indignities of work life that are routine for the first-
year associates whose salaries trump theirs. That, as they say, is
priceless."

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