Judicial Reports: 'Miracle' on 46th Street
By Jason Boog
jasonboog@judicialstudies.com
Posted 12-19-2007
Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye sent a message to justices seeking her support for litigation to break the pay raise logjam: No, your honors, there is no lawsuit clause.
The event marked the tenth anniversary of the last judicial pay raise, and some observers expected the announcement of lawsuits or criticism of the stalled legislative negotiations over judicial cost of living adjustments. The Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye mostly reminisced about the last pay raise in her midtown chambers at the intersection of 46th Street and Park Avenue.
“Wonder of wonders, in the darkest days of December [1998], the Legislature suddenly reconvened in Albany, and in a snap, it was accomplished,” she recalled.
“Let’s have another holiday miracle, like December 1998,” the judge concluded wistfully, sounding a bit like a plucky heroine from a Dickens novel.
The judge placed all her hope in a bill (S. 6550) that the New York State Senate passed when it reconvened last week. The legislation would raise the paycheck of a Supreme Court Justice from $136,000 to $165,000.
Judges were cheered because the new bill uncouples the judicial pay raise from one for legislators — a sticky issue that has disrupted salary negotiations for years.
But the bill is completely meaningless unless the state Assembly decides to consider the package. Another pay raise bill (S.5313) has languished, untouched, since the Senate passed it in April.
And the Assembly has not even reconvened as the Senate did.
Following the press conference, Dan Weiller, spokesperson for Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, said, “The Speaker does support pay raises for judges, but I have no further comment on specifics.”
“We’ve been hoping all along that the Assembly would go along,” said Senator John A. DeFrancisco, the Republican Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and sponsor of the most recent bill, in a separate interview.
“There’s literally been no discussion. When I learned we were coming back, I thought it was great opportunity to put the bill out — to give the Assembly a choice between two bills. The Assembly couldn’t hide behind that issue. Now they have a choice.”
Judges have been shut out since April, when the New York Legislature dumped a promised judicial pay raise in the final hours of budget negotiations. It was a familiar snub — legislative bickering killed raises the year before.
Despite continuing to refrain from a litigious call to arms, Kaye on Wednesday enlisted a battalion of adverbs: “Don’t put us off needlessly, wrongly, disdainfully, unfairly, yet again. For us, this has been an incomparably frustrating, angering year.”
A few less patient members of the bench have sued the state government for pay raises, notwithstanding a lack of support from the Office of Court Administration.
After her remarks, Judge Kaye addressed those suits directly, while still demurring to take more dramatic action. “I’ve been following those suits closely. I think we’ve had 25 drafts of lawsuits,” she said. “For one branch of the government to sue the other, that is quite a different matter.”
The judge ended by pointing to a blindfolded statue of Lady Justice, holding the iconic scales in one hand. “Look what she has in her other hand, a sword,” said Kaye, perhaps hinting at legal rumbles still to come.
This holiday season, it seems, the sword remains sheathed.
Posted by Jason on December 19, 2007 04:34 PM to Judicial Reports