Judges Should Have One Master

As part of a 1989 ethics reform law, Congress wisely barred federal judges, along with federal lawmakers and top staffers in the government, from accepting speaking fees from private groups. Congress worried, appropriately, that continuing to allow these payments left the door open to special interests and raised the specter of graft and corruption. Those concerns, no less salient now, should prompt Congress to reject a measure that would, for judges, repeal this ban.

The provision is buried deep in the judiciary appropriations bill now awaiting final action in the Senate. Under the measure, federal judges could collect speaking fees under guidelines to be set by the Federal Judicial Conference, the judiciary’s own policymaking body.

This change is a terrible idea. Proponents of lifting the ban, including Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, contend that federal judges have lost ground financially to private lawyers and even to some state court judges. Congress recognized the need to make judicial salaries competitive by coupling its 1989 ban on honorariums with a commitment to regular cost-of-living increases for judges--a commitment that, unfortunately, has not been kept.

Those salaries now range from $141,300 per year for district court judges to Rehnquist’s $181,400. Judges’ pay long ago ceased to keep pace with what lawyers in blue-chip firms make. Of course the situations are not quite parallel--a federal judgeship offers unique perks, such as lifetime tenure, for one. Yet judges have found their salary stagnation particularly galling in recent years as pay for the most sought-after new lawyers has skyrocketed beyond what even veteran jurists bring home.

The answer is for Congress to vote regular pay raises rather than let judges put out their palms for $500 or even $5,000 speaking fees from private groups. Trading away the independence of our courts so judges can pocket a little mad money is unacceptable.