Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Courts deserve better

Thursday, Oct. 5, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

Here we go again. Congress has been seriously considering a cheap way out of a situation it created. The sad part about this latest bit of foolishness is the help that Sen. Mitch McConnell claims he is receiving from Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist.

For too many decades Congress has played with the salaries of federal judges. Some years this has been done to punish men and women jurists who have decided cases based on the U.S. Constitution and not the whims of politicians. Other times pay increases have been denied by an envious legislative branch that conveniently forgets the courts are an equal branch of government.

Eleven years ago a law was passed that banned judges from accepting honorariums, including payments for giving speeches. McConnell is now pushing to remove this ban and allow judges to accept speaking fees. Why is he eager to make this exception? I can't believe it's to help the judiciary, but rather to get a foot in the door for lawmakers to again accept large direct contributions from corporations under the guise of an honorarium. Whatever McConnell's reasoning, it's a backward step for the judiciary in the minds of the American people. If any attempt to weaken the judiciary is successful and is included in the Justice Department spending bill, then President Clinton should veto it.

On Tuesday Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., wisely got together to kill McConnell's snake. They recognized the return of honorariums for the havoc it would wreak on the public's trust in the judiciary. Will this snake stay dead or will it return in some other form next year?

When the honorarium ban was passed in 1989 it came with a pledge that the judges would receive regular cost-of-living increases. Like so many other congressional promises it hasn't been kept. Because of this our federal judges have continued to fall behind the salaries of practicing attorneys who appear before them. Even more irritating is the ability of lawyers two and three years out of law school being paid more by big firms than senior judges receive.

The courts have long been the whipping boy for some members of Congress. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has gone as far as saying "the judges need to be intimidated" and threatens impeachment for those who don't agree to interpret the law as he sees it. This absurd conduct contributes to petty actions like "forgetting" to include judges in cost-of-living increases.

Twenty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress couldn't repeal a raise for judges. This encouraged Congress to pass a law that kept judicial salaries from rising unless specifically included in a pay raise law. That requirement was automatically waived until 1997 when DeLay and his cohorts defeated the amendment to waive the requirement.

It has been this kind of nit-picking that continues to throw a shadow over Congress as a respectable branch of government. Now some in that body want to participate in throwing our judges back into the same dark shadow of public doubt that they have created for themselves. Such shadows don't seem to bother many members of Congress, but Americans expect the judiciary to be at least one cut above the legislators.

One answer to the entire mess is to bring the pay of our judges up, and then without quibbling grant the cost-of-living increases given to Congress. Next year the new chief executive will receive a salary of $400,000. There should be no question that the chief of judiciary should receive two-thirds of that amount with his associates and other federal judges also moving up the salary scale an equal percentage.

The removal of the ban on speaker fees would be unfair to the judges and to the entire system. The quality of men and women we deserve to have sitting as federal judges should expect to be compensated fairly and be held above the bondage Congress would like to impose.