NY Daily News Editorial on Judicial Raises

An order for the court: State's judiciary must not direct Legislature to give it a raise
The New York Daily News - EDITORIAL- January 13, 2010

Judges on the Court of Appeals heard a suit yesterday contending they and their colleagues have a right to higher salaries - and should order the Legislature to pony up. The court must not go down that road. The arguments made clear that New York's judiciary should refrain from provoking a constitutional clash with lawmakers over pay. This is not the case for war between branches of government. The good-government and political grounds for granting judges their first cost-of-living adjustment since 1999 are rock-solid. Their salaries have lost a third of their buying power to inflation, to the point that the chief judge brings in less than a junior associate at a major Manhattan law firm. But good-government and political arguments are out of place as the basis for judicial action, let alone for intruding on lawmakers' prerogatives. Then, too, ordering legislators to appropriate moneys would would smack of credibility-destroying self-interest. The jurists point primarily to a constitutional clause that prohibits lawmakers from diminishing judicial salaries. They reason that inflation has eaten away judges' purchasing power, and therefore pay has, in effect, been diminished. It's a slim reed. But there's no way constitutional framers had the Consumer Price Index in mind when they wrote the clause. The intent was to prevent rogue lawmakers from punishing judges for unpopular decisions by actively cutting salaries. Nothing of the sort has happened here. No, New York's judges are, like so many others, merely victims of irresponsible legislating. The onus rests with the Assembly, led by Speaker Sheldon Silver, who refused to hike judicial pay unless lawmakers, too, got raises - and then never had the gumption to fight for increases. No matter what the Court of Appeals does, rest assured that Silver will get around to the issue when he is good and ready. Sadly, judicial discretion will be the better part of valor.