Recently, a sitting judge, while on a local radio
show, called UIUC leaders “gutless” for their mild rebuke of student protesters
who disrupted Gov. Rauner’s campus speech. After serving as a federal district
judge in Illinois from 1998 to 2014, he retired. According to 28 U.S. Code §
371 (Retirement on salary; retirement in senior status), this entitled him to
retirement pay “equal to the salary he was receiving at the time he retired.” In
2014, this salary amount was slightly less than $200,000 per year. Presumably,
part or much of this pension is funded by taxpayers.
According to Wikipedia, “He was appointed to the Illinois
Tenth Judicial Circuit, his original seat, taking office on June 3, 2014.... [The judge] stated his intention to run for election in November 2016.”
According to an official website, he remains listed as a “resident
judge.”
If true, this suggests that this state judge earns about $190,758 per year, on
top of nearly $200,000 in federal pension money. It’s possible that the federal plan
offsets the judicial annuity by new earnings, and it’s also possible that the judge declines to accept pension pay from the federal government. But maybe
not. If he collects from both sources, this judge isn’t gutless—to the
contrary, he has guts.
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