Long-awaited raise for Texas judges in limbo over legislative pension clash

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Long-awaited pay raises for Texas judges are stuck in a legislative limbo as the clock winds down and lawmakers battle over the future of their own retirement plans.

Senate Bill 293 would give judges their first raise in over a decade, increasing base pay 25% to $175,000 a year from $140,000, addressing what both chambers and parties have deemed an emergency in the state.

But now they are at odds over a change the House made to the bill that would keep lawmakers’ retirement plans flat, while the Senate wants to see their pensions increase alongside judicial pay.

Despite several hurried meetings Saturday among representatives and senators involved in this issue, they did not put forward a report harmonizing the disagreement by the midnight Saturday deadline, narrowing the chances that raises are approved before the session ends Monday.

While lawmakers earn just $7,200 a year for their part-time legislative service, those who serve more than eight years are eligible for a pension when they turn 60 (or when they turn 50 if they’ve served 12 years.) Rather than basing that payout on their meager legislative salary, it’s tied to the base salary for a district judge, a benefit that allows some of the longest-standing lawmakers to earn annual retirement payments of $140,000 a year.

The House amendment said these pensions would remain tied to the current judicial salary of $140,000, rather than increasing their retirement benefits alongside judicial pay.

“I do not believe, speaking for me, that this is the right way to consider increases to our legislative retirement,” said bill sponsor Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican.

The Senate disagreed. On Friday night, less than 72 hours before the end of an unusually smooth legislative session, Sen. José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, called a point of order, saying the legislative pension amendment was not germane to the bill and should be removed.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick upheld Menéndez’s challenge, a shocking procedural development for the upper chamber. While bills sometimes fall victim to a point of order in the House, senators rarely bring these procedural challenges.

When the House gaveled in on Saturday afternoon, it became clear members had no intention of backing down on their amendment as the Senate had requested. House Speaker Dustin Burrows said under House rules they were “not authorized” to remove just one amendment, and there is “certainly no rule or precedent” that allows the Senate to amend House amendments.

“To your knowledge has anything like this ever been done before?,” Rep. Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat asked.

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Burrows responded, noting that the traditional way these sorts of disputes are resolved is in conference committee, where a group of members from both chambers negotiate the final disagreements over a bill.

Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat from Austin, told The Texas Tribune on Saturday that the senators felt Leach and bill author Sen. Joan Huffman had agreed to the decoupling without the full support and knowledge of the chambers. She said they “have to get to a yes” on this, but she is “pro-public servant” and wants public officials to be appropriately compensated.

Lawmakers often try to plan their legislative tenure based on these pension timelines — eight years of service gets you vested in the retirement system, and they earn more each additional year they serve. Some are worried that removing the judicial pay connection will make it harder to argue for an increase to the pension program going forward.

Meanwhile, judges are panicking about their pay raises. Judges earn less in Texas than almost any other state, and this 25% raise will still leave them far behind where they would be in the private sector.

“Most law students … going into the first year at a law firm are making more than the starting salary of our judges,” Leach said Saturday.

There are still paths to pay raises for judges, but it would likely require the Senate adopting the House version, or both chambers suspending the rules, which takes a three-fifths vote in the Senate and a two-thirds vote in the House. Neither seems imminent, with both chambers seemingly stuck in their positions. On Sunday, Leach told the Tribune he was “hopeful and optimistic” that the Senate would pass the House bill. But Patrick, on X, said Leach had been unwilling to compromise, and it would be hard to come to a solution until the representative conceded that his amendment was improper.

“If Rep. Leach wanted to address pensions this session, he should have filed a separate bill or do so in the future, but he shouldn’t kill judicial pay because he failed to do that,” Patrick said.

Lawmakers said they’ve been deluged with calls from judges urging them to resolve this snag, with some judges telling them they’d only stayed on the bench because of the promise of raises on the horizon. On Saturday, Supreme Court of Texas Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock sent a letter to all lawmakers, proposing amended language that kicks the can to next session.

“At this critical juncture, if either legislative chamber insists on its favored solution to the legislator-pension question, I fear we will end the session without any increase in judicial pay,” Blacklock wrote. “If that happens, it is not the judges themselves but our Texas justice system — which should be the envy of the world — that will suffer most, along with the thousands of Texans who seek justice in our courts every day.”

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