Paying the Judicial Piper

If low judicial salaries are in fact a constitutional crisis, as Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has warned, then the proximate cause of the crisis, in the view of many, is "linkage." That is, the 20-year-old practice of linking the salaries of federal district judges to the salaries of members of Congress and deputy cabinet secretaries. Because election-conscious members of Congress find it near-impossible to raise their own salaries, judges haven't gotten raises either.

As we reported last month on a House hearing on the subject, "de-linking" is a hard sell with some members of Congress. But a bipartisan ad hoc group of former members of Congress this week sought to up the pressure. Former Missouri Senator John Danforth (pictured) and former California Congressman Leon Panetta wrote officials of both houses urging the change, and noting that in real dollars, the pay of judges has declined 25 percent since 1969. If linkage continues, they warn, the judiciary will eventually be composed of  "the independently wealthy or those for whom a federal judicial appointment represents a salary enhancement." A recent joint report by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution titled "Paying the Piper: It's Time to Call Different Tunes for Congressional and Judicial Salaries" bolsters the point.