N.Y. Judge Ties Longer Beard to Fatter Paychecks
A New York judge is pledging he won’t shave his beard until the state judiciary gets a pay hike.
Acting Judge Philip Straniere of Staten Island points out that judges haven’t had a pay raise for almost nine years, yet they are restricted in the kind of outside work they can do to earn extra cash.
“You don’t see Nike ads for judicial robes, do you?” he told the Staten Island Advance. State judges currently make about $136,000.
Straniere says judges got their hopes up when the legislature passed a budget with judicial pay hikes in 2005 but failed to enact enabling legislation.
“Since then, judges have been told that they should not worry because the raise is coming,” he said. “And so is Godot.”
Two lawsuits have been filed seeking to force the issue.
A New York judge on Friday tossed several counts in one of the suits but allowed trial on a claim that judicial independence is threatened.
Judge Thomas McNamara allowed the independence claim but expressed skepticism about its prospects, the New York Law Journal reports.
“Given that legislators and senior executive branch officials have also been denied raises [since 1999], plaintiffs face a difficult task in establishing that the failure to provide salary increases is designed to influence the judiciary,” he wrote. “Even showing that political branch benign neglect is destructive of judicial independence presents a difficult task.”
McNamara rejected arguments that reduced buying power caused by inflation violates the New York Constitution’s ban on judicial salary cuts.
A hat tip to How Appealing, which posted the story on the bearded judge.
