Lawmaker suggests trimming Iowa Supreme Court pay

DES MOINES – Defenders of Iowa's judiciary like to point out it is a separate and equal branch of state government. For a moment April 5, the Supreme Court justices faced the possibility of getting paychecks equal to state legislators.

With the Iowa House debating Senate File 511, the judicial appropriations budget, Rep. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull, offered an amendment to lower salaries for Supreme Court justice to the same level as legislators - $37,500 for the chief justice and $25,000 for other justices. Those salaries currently are $170,850 and $163,200, respectively.

Alons said his amendment, which he withdrew because it was not germane, was not simply because he disagreed with the court's unanimous decision to strike down Iowa's ban on same-sex marriage.

He cited a number of bills in the Legislature this year that address recent decisions that appear to “enter the area of legislating from the bench.” Among them is one that deals with insurance policies and how the court interpreted action by insurance agents, one sought by the Attorney General's Office dealing with forfeiture and another sought by county attorneys to reverse a Supreme Court decision on releasing mental health records to assist in criminal defense.

SF 511 will go back to the Senate because House Republican amended the budget to make it a two-year budget as requested by Gov. Terry Branstad. The bill appropriated $156 million for fiscal 2012, an increase of $800,000. The Judicial Branch has 1,792.9 FTE positions that are not limited.

It also included $157 million for the second year of the budget, and increase of $3.2 million. It includes $2.3 million for the Jury and Witness Revolving Fund.