Letters to the Editor
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.
‘Study: Underpaid Judges Borrow Against Pensions’
The Sun tells us that “State judges in New York are so underpaid that about 10% of them are borrowing against their pensions to make ends meet” [New York, “Study: Underpaid Judges Borrow Against Pensions,” May 30, 2007].
Well boo hoo.
According to the Investment Company Institute, 19% of Americans who can borrow from their 401(k) programs are doing so. I did it myself to pay school tuitions.
The Sun article says state judges make $136,700 per year. The next day the Sun reports that some city police officers make only $25,100 a year [New York, “Lack of Police Recruits Could put Squeeze on Leadership,” May 31, 2007]. That number eventually rises to $59,588.
In another separate article, the Sun reports that the average family on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Upper West Side has an income of about $70,000 [Real Estate, “Rising Number of Evictions in Harlem Spurs Tenant Advocacy,” May 31, 2007]. Indeed, the U.S. Census Bureau says the median family income in New York State for a family of four is $72,170.
If New York State judges could earn more as private sector lawyers, they should. In the meantime they should try to make a better case for a pay raise.
ROYCE ROWE
New York, N.Y.
‘Defending Justice Thomas’
Your fine editorial, “Defending Justice Thomas,” observes that “the Times appears incapable of judging him by his actual writings … ” [Editorial, “Defending Justice Thomas,” June 7, 2007]. Permit me to quibble with that one word. The Times is entirely capable of doing so, but the Gray Lady does not dare.
As I write in the penultimate paragraph of my recent book, “The Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas, 1991-2006,” “If [quoting Professor John Eastman] ‘it is becoming clear that Thomas’s own jurisprudential philosophy is more in line with the principles of our nation’s founders, and hence with the Constitution they framed, than any other sitting justice’s is,’ the reason can be found in his acceptance, and application, of the natural-rights philosophy in which the United States is rooted.”
It is that philosophy, so dear to Justice Thomas, that is so anathema to the New York Times.
HENRY HOLZER
Professor Emeritus
Brooklyn Law School
New York. N.Y.
