Poser for the Next Chief Judge
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The first question for candidates for chief judge of New York’s top court clearly should be whether the candidates are aware what the job pays. We say that because the chief judge who is retiring from the job, Judith Kaye, is suing the governor and the legislature for a raise. Judge Kaye has done a fine job by our lights, even though we don’t agree with a number of her opinions. But her retirement is an opportunity to be rid of her ceaseless clamoring for more money.
What the job pays is $156,000 a year, and it comes with a number of other benefits, such as health insurance, a pension, a car and driver, and a hotel room in Albany when court is in session. Judge Kaye might be able to get a judge subordinate to her to order a raise. But more likely is that her pay and that of the other judges won’t be increased by so much as a farthing unless the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, decides the judges deserve a raise. This is something applicants for the job deserve to know. If they don’t, let it be made clear to them.
Stressing the limited pay for the job would logically be a job for the 12 eminent persons who are members of the panel that vets judicial candidates. Four members are named by the governor, four by the chief judge, and four by the top members of the legislature. Surely they can summon the will to look each applicant in the eye and ask him or her whether he or she understands what the job pays and the unlikelihood of the pay being increased save for some kind of judicial coup.
It may be that this will scare away all the worthy candidates. At least one might fear this from all the weeping and wailing that we have heard about judicial pay of late. But it may also be that the vetting process will turn up really splendid candidates who are full of exceptional idealism and are prepared to make sacrifices for the chance to serve a population of taxpayers in New York who are the most over-burdened in the entire country and who also suffer from the effects of the Great Thief Inflation.