Legal News

If Auto Bailout Bill Passes, Judges Get a COLA

By Ashby Jones

So this $14 billion bailout bill currently making its way through the halls of Congress stands mostly to benefit the U.S. auto industry. But it also, oddly, stands to benefit federal district judges.

Here’s why: The bill attaches an annual cost-of-living adjustment — or COLA — for federal judges, which, when implemented, will bring them in line with members of Congress, who get a $5,000 boost at the start of the year. District judges and members of Congress make $169,300. Here’s the AP story. Click here, here and here for other LB posts on the topic of judicial pay, which has been raging for years.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., insisted that the judicial pay raise go into the bill. The Senate passed the judicial pay measure as a separate bill in November, but the House never acted. As a result, Reid has taken the unusual step of linking the obscure but important judicial pay issue to the unpopular auto bailout.

There is concern among many policymakers that judges are not paid enough relative to the importance of their offices, and in six of the past 13 years, judges have been denied their pay raise as lawmakers opted not to take their own COLA.

Photo: iStockPhoto

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 10, 2008 (boomark / email).