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Bar Associations Note Failures in Progress on Judicial Pay, Urge Immediate Action

Last month, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist received a report urging action on federal judicial pay from ABA President A.P. Carlton Jr., and FBA President Kent S. Hofmeister. Joining the Chief Justice in responding to questions from the press were Justices Stephen G. Breyer, David H. Souter, and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Reproduced from the collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Failed reforms have adversely affected salaries for top-level federal officials in all three branches of government, warned a White Paper prepared by the American Bar Association and the Federal Bar Association, and the erosion in judicial pay in particular cannot continue without causing harm to our nation’s Third Branch of government.

Last month at the Supreme Court, ABA President Alfred P. Carlton Jr, and FBA President Kent S. Hofmeister presented to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist the report, “Federal Judicial Pay: An Update on the Urgent Need for Action.” Rehnquist was joined by Associate Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, and Stephen G. Breyer. The FBA and ABA collaborated in 2001 to produce a similar paper on the problem of eroding judicial pay, a problem the 2003 update says has not been rectified and, indeed, has worsened.

“Over the course of the past three decades, judicial salaries have declined in value, while the salary of the average American worker has increased by 17.5 percent,” said the report. As a result, seasoned judges are choosing not to remain on the bench; potential candidates are discouraged from seeking appointment to the bench; and the federal bench is losing the diversity that comes from the appointment of individuals of varying financial means who have served in different capacities in both the public and private sectors.

Accepting the report, Rehnquist said, “I consider the need to increase judicial salaries to be the most pressing issue facing the federal Judiciary today. The longer it takes to raise salaries, the more serious the problem becomes. In order to continue to provide a nation with a capable and effective judicial system, we must be able to attract and retain highly qualified and diverse men and women to serve as federal judges.”

The Supreme Court press conference was an unusual opportunity for the media to hear the views of four justices and two bar association presidents on the problems of eroding judicial pay.

Past legislative measures to establish workable solutions to the salary-setting dilemma have failed.
Those measures included the reforms enacted as part of the 1989 Ethics Reform Act, the salary review commission that never became operational, and the mechanism for automatic cost-of-living adjustments that has not worked as intended.

The report urged “Congress and the President to take remedial action, in recognition of the nation’s need to attract and retain a Judiciary of exceptional quality and diversity, as well as the legitimate expectations of those who have accepted lifetime appointments to the bench to be equitably compensated and protected against salary erosion by inflation.”

(Left to Right) Administrative Office Director Leonidas Ralph Mecham, ABA President A.P. Carlton Jr., Chief Judge Deanell Tacha (10^th Cir.) and FBA President Kent S. Hofmeister. Like the bar associations, Mecham and Tacha, in her capacity as chair of the Judicial Conference Judicial Branch Committee, have sought to bring the issue of inadequate pay for federal judges--and the effect of that inadequacy on the federal Judiciary--to the attention of Congress.