Kennedy testifies at Senate hearing
on Feb 14, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy testified on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, discussing the general subject of “judicial independence.” Justices appear annually on Capitol Hill to testify at hearings on the Court’s budget requests, but they do not testify frequently on other subjects. The text of Kennedy’s prepared remarks can be found here; thanks to Howard Bashman of How Appealing blog for the link.
Kennedy noted the rarity of the occasion, remarking: “Members of our Court should be guarded and restrained both in the number of appearances before you and in the matters discussed, in order to ensure that Article III judicial officers do not reach beyond their proper, limited role.” He said the Committee’s invitation to send a Justice to this hearing “gave us initial pause.” But, after discussing it with Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and other Justices, the invitation was accepted, he noted.
He went on to lament the state of the federal judiciary at present, saying “in more than three decades as a judge, I have not seen my colleagues in the judiciary so dispirited as at the present time.” A key problem, he said, was Congress’ failure to raise judicial salaries to sufficient levels to maintain excellence in the U.S. courts. In elaborating on that theme, he repeated some of the same arguments the Chief Justice made in a year-end report devoted to the question of judicial pay.
