Countywide : County Bar Group Backs Raise for Federal Judges

Entering the thorny debate over judicial pay, the Orange County Bar Assn. supported a 30% raise Wednesday for the nation’s 1,300 federal judges, who earn $89,500 a year but say they are grossly underpaid in contrast with judicial peers.

By a unanimous vote at its monthly meeting Wednesday night, the bar’s board approved a resolution supporting the proposed raise, declaring: “It is in the public interest to raise judges’ salaries at least 30% initially and to guarantee them regular cost-of-living increases thereafter, free from the shifting winds of politics.”

Bar President Michael H. Gazin, calling the pay raise “drastically needed,” said the county is “particularly affected by the inadequate pay” for federal judges.

With the prospect that several more federal judges will be added in coming years to the two already based in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Gazin said it is “crucial” that the federal judiciary attract “the best and the brightest” from the legal community.

Earlier this year, Congress was ready to enact a 50% raise for its members, federal judges and other federal officials. But after encountering a groundswell of public opposition to the idea of raising pay at a time of looming federal deficits, legislators were forced to reject the proposal in a Feb. 7 vote.

That vote, however, has prompted more debate on the issue, as a wide range of politicians, academicians and jurists have projected an unprecedented exodus from the federal judiciary--a “revolving door”--if salaries cannot keep better pace with the private sector.