But making sure that judicial pay is not held hostage to legislative pay is clearly the right thing to do.

Under the legislation, judicial pay will increase by nearly 35 percent, in two steps, by Jan. 1, 1991.

Low judicial pay should trouble us not because the judges will somehow lack "excellence."

Judge Kaye also renewed her perennial call for judicial pay raises, another area where the governor has said he would be supportive.

The first, of course, is the perennial topic of judicial pay.

He has sought to shame the Legislature into providing decent facilities and judicial pay.

I do not need to cite the statistics on falling judicial pay.

Inadequate judicial pay undermines the strength of our judiciary.

If Congress were to raise federal judicial pay by $100,000 a year, the added cost would be less than $150 million a year.

To top it all off, the governor wants to separate judicial pay from legislators' pay.