The Mississippi State House of Representatives defeated the latest judicial pay-raise bill last week. The bill needed 71 votes to pass, but got only 59. Here is a link to how members voted on the bill.

Mississippi has the lowest paid judiciary in the nation. The bill would have provided a 37% pay raise for judges who are 100% underpaid and who have not seen a raise in years. The bill proposed to fund the raise by modestly increasing lawsuit filing fees.

Opponents of the bill gave a suspect defense of their votes:

Opponents said with a tight state budget, this isn’t the time to consider raises for any public employees.

“I admire the legal system for their intestinal fortitude to come down here and ask for this at this time,” said Rep. Ted Mayhall, R-Southaven. “We don’t have the money.”

By “we” Mayhall presumably meant the state budget coffers. But since the raise was to be funded by filing fees rather than the general budget, Mayhall’s explanation does not make sense.

Tort reform proponents use similar Mayhallogic (not logical) to defend damages caps. They argue for the caps by saying that caps are needed due to frivolous lawsuits. But that does not make sense because caps come into play only in cases involving the most seriously injured.

What does make sense is the notion that Mayhall and other opponents of the judicial pay-raise bill do not want a strong judicial branch. They want to substitute the legislature’s judgment and authority for the judiciary’s. They want to eviscerate one of the three branches of government.

With tort reform’s limits on non-economic damages, the legislature tells the judicial branch that the legislature does not trust the judiciary to administer justice fairly. Instead, the legislature determines what are the outer limits on just compensation for victims of other people’s wrong-doing.

When the judiciary tells the legislature that judges need a raise, the legislature says no. We will set the laws on how much victims can recover and how much you get paid. You’ll get nothing and like it.

This raises an interesting dynamic with at least two cases challenging the constitutionality of damages caps currently before the Mississippi Supreme Court. Will the Court accept that Uncle Mayhall and the rest of the legislature know best? Or will the Court rule that the caps are unconstitutional and violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause?

One thing is for certain: the Supreme Court is unlikely to uphold the caps in order to protect their high-paying jobs. Every single justice on the Court could make more money in the private sector. On average, they would make significantly more. But why should Mayhall and other legislators care? Unlike state court judges, legislators can have another job to supplement their State pay.

With the election victories in the last few years of Justices Kitchens and Graves, it’s apparent that judges do not have to suck up to big business in order to win elections. Having a moderate record and good campaign skills is more important to winning an election than approval by the Chamber.

It would be ironic if the Court strikes the caps. If it does, I suggest the following passage for the Court’s opinion: “the Court admires the legislature’s intestinal fortitude to come down here and tell the Court how much people can recover in lawsuits. But the Constitution says that this is a job for the legal system. You don’t have this power. Juries and judges do.”