John Conyers: “This is a great day in the Federal system where we on the Committee on the Judiciary have decided to authorize a COLA…”

“This is a great day in the Federal system where we on the Committee on the Judiciary have decided to authorize a COLA for the members of the Federal judicial system in America. Now, there are only a couple of problems here, and I, of course, enthusiastically support H.R. 5363. The first is that those who work in the administrative office of the courts, those who work for the Federal judges, now enjoy greater salaries than the judges themselves. The second thing is that, under the system that we are implementing, Article III, section 1 of the Constitution, the fact of the matter is that the failure to provide past cost-of-living adjustments to our Federal judiciary has, in the last decade, resulted in an economic reduction in salary in the equivalent amount of $77,000, and so we are now faced with a crisis of dozens, six dozen, judges having left the judiciary in the past several years. I think it is obvious to all that it is hard to continue to maintain a qualified and independent judiciary if we are not paying them a just wage.”