The New York Times reports on the next round in the ongoing feud between the legislature and the state's judiciary over pay raises; in an earlier iteration of the fight, judges had refused to hear cases involving counsel from Speaker Silver's law firm, Weitz and Luxenburg.

Weighing in on a longstanding tug of war between New York’s jurists and lawmakers, a State Supreme Court justice ordered the Legislature on Wednesday to give the state’s 1,250 judges their first pay raise in 10 years.

The ruling, by Justice Edward H. Lehner, came in response to a lawsuit filed last September by Patricia M. Nuñez of New York City Criminal Court, Michael L. Nenno of Cattaraugus County Family Court, Susan R. Larabee of New York City Family Court and Geoffrey D. Wright of New York City Civil Court. Justice Lehner gave the Legislature 90 days to increase the current salary of $136,700 for all New York State trial judges.[...]

The government has used “judicial pay as a pawn in dealing with the unresolved political issue of legislative compensation,” he wrote. He said the link was “an abuse of power by defendants and constitutes an unconstitutional interference upon the independence of the judiciary.”

In other news, impoverished legislator Diane Gordon was sentenced to two to six years in prison for her own efforts to expand her obviously inadequate salary. Perhaps legislative pay raises should be considered simply as an incentive to stop some rogue legislators from padding their benefices by demanding free houses from developers.