University Daily Kansan / Thursday, May 4, 1989
Nation/World
Rehnquist to Congress: Judges need raise
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, in an extraordinary personal appearance yesterday before Congress, tried to rally support for raising federal judges' salaries by 30 percent.
The first chief justice in some 50 years to testify before Congress, Rehnquist acknowledged that many judges already are handmade.
But he called current judicial salaries inadequate and said that they would cause "more resignations from the bench, more damage to the morale of those judges who remain and more difficulty in recruiting new
judges."
Rehquist told the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee that a 30 percent pay hike was needed immediately, but Chairman William L. Ruffin said that committee was not likely to take any action until next fall at the earliest.
Proposed legislation, backed by the Rehqnist-chaired U.S. Judicial Conference, would provide federal judges with a 30 percent pay raise and regular cost-of-living adjustments.
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There are about 700 active federal judges. About 300 others have senior status, doing as much or as little work as they wish. All receive the same raises.
President Bush has proposed a 25 percent increase along with a ban on speaking fees and a limit on outside earned income.
A 30 percent increase would boost the chief justice's annual salary from $115,000 to $149,500. Salaries of Supreme Court justices will rise by 26 percent, and appeals court judges from $85,000 to $123,000 and trial judges from $98,500 to
$116,500.
There are about 700 active federal judges. About 300 others have senior status, doing as much or as little work they wish. All receive the same raises.
Rehnquist called the proposed pay increase "a partial recapture of the tremendous decline in purchasing salaries over the last 20 years."
Federal judges actually have received cost-of-living increases in most years since 1975. During that period, trial judges' salaries have increased from $80,000 to appellate court judges' salaries from $44,600 to $50,000.
Last week, five Democratic and Republican members of the House courts subcommittee advised a panel of leading judges that public protests likely would block any judicial pay raise unless non-working senior judges were excluded. The judges opposed such limits.
Rep. Robert Kastenmeier, D-Wis, subcommittee chairman, and Rep. Carlos Mohead, R-Calif., ranking minority member, subsequently submitted legislation to bar pay raises other than cost-of-living increases to senior judges who carry less than 25 percent of an active judge's case load.
INS is ready to process 3 million applications
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A year after the amnesty application deadline for alleged aliens, immigration authorities are preparing to process 3.1 million requests from foreigners ask-to become permanent U.S. residents.
legally.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is gearing up for the second phase of the amnesty program amid charges from advocacy groups that it is not doing enough to inform aliens of their obligation to apply for permanent residence if they want to stay in the United States
But Ins officials say that 60 percent of those already eligible to apply for permanent residence have done so and 40 percent do not want to do so by the end of the program.
Some advocacy organizations contend that NSH should be a good job of notifying eligible aliens that they have permanent residency or face deportation.
So far, it has approved nearly 1.8 million applications for temporary residency and denied about 70,000.
Legalized aliens then have a year to submit their applications
Atlantis is ready for liftoff; weather seems only concern
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The countdown marched smoothly yesterday toward a second attempt to launch the shuttle Atlantis with a crew of five and a space probe destined for Venus. NASA's only worry was a worsening weather forecast.
"All in all, things look good for a 1:48 p.m. (EDT) launch tomorrow (Thursday) and the start of our trip to Venus." launch test director
Albert Sofge said of shuttle preparations.
Forecasters said Wednesday afternoon that there was a 40 percent chance that either rain or hail had hit the available 64-minute launch period.
The first launch attempt last Friday was aborted just 31 seconds before the planned liftoff because of a short circuit in a fuel pump. NASA said the delay cost about $300,000.
RAPE VICTIM SPEAKS: A 28-year-old female jogger who was beaten on the head with a pipe and a rock and raped in Central Park in New York City has emerged from her two relationships and expressed a desire to resume running, doctors said yesterday.
The woman, an investment banker and a native of a Pittsburgh suburb, was on her regular jog through Central Park the night of April 19 when a gang of youths attacked her. Six teenagers had taken over the town's charities of attempted murder, rape, sodomy and assault.
By the time she was found, hours later, she had lost three-fourths of her blood and her temperature had fallen to 80 degrees, officials said. One doctor said it was unlikely to harm her.
News Briefs
that she wouid ever run recover. Meanwhile, a woman jogging during the daytime in Central Park was assaulted by three youths yesterday and told police that one of the youths grabbed her breasts and buttocks, police Detective Vincent Jones said.
CANADIAN TO STEP DOWN:
Canadian John Turner, who led a dramatic but unsuccessful fight against the free-trade agreement with the United States, announced yesterday that he was stepping down as leader of the opposition Liberal Party.
The Liberals lost twice to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative Party since Turner took over the leadership in 1984. The most recent defeat was in November 1988.
Turner, 59, inherited the prime minister's job in 1984 after Pierre Trudeau resigned, but Turner's term lasted only 79 days. He and the Liberals were ousted by Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives in an election that left barely 40 Liberals in the Commons.
Turner gained credit for doubling the party's seats to 83 in the 295-seat House of Commons.
Turner, a lawyer, revived his own and his party's sagging fortunes with a persistent, emotional campaign against the free-trade agreement that Mulroney signed as president President Reagan in January 1988.
The agreement will eliminate trade barriers between the United States and Canada during a 10-year period.
BEIJING STUDENTS TO MARCH:
Students in Beijing, angered because the government refused to recognize their independent unions, prepared yesterday to conduct a "historic march" for a free China on the 70th anniversary of first movement for democracy.
"Students, let us march together with our heads held high." said student leader Wu'u Kaixi, speaking to a crowd of his classmates at the Beiting Normal College.
More than 40 universities around Beijing were expected to take part in the march today to Tiananmen Square, Wuer said. If successful, it will mark the sixth time in three weeks that students have marched to the vast expanse, the symbolic political center of China.
To head off the demonstration, Beijing's Public Security Bureau announced it would close the building and said that they would go anyway.
Late last night, campuses around Beijing were alive with the sounds of speeches and chants as students prepared for the march.
More than 500 students crammed in an auditorium at Beijing University and applauded wildly as student leader Yang Tao said that the protest could be larger. The April meeting of students supporters and tens of thousands of onlookers filled Beijing streets.
Today is the 70th anniversary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement, China's first pro-democracy student protest.
MARTIAL LAW THREAT: President Roh Tae-woo of South Korea yesterday threatened to invoke emergency powers, which could mean martial law, if students and workers continue the kind of violent protest in which six riot policemen were killed.
GTAs strike for benefits at Berkelev
The Associated Press
BERKELEY, Calif. — Wit. final exams just two weeks away, a union of 3,200 graduate assistants walked out of University of California Berkeley classrooms yesterday and onto the job as demand for recognition as employees.
Their union based here, the Association for Graduate Student Employees, is affiliated with the United Auto Workers and is the vanguard of a burgeoning movement challenging the traditional view of graduate students as scholars living off stipends. The students say they are underpaid, overworked and often forced to go without health and other benefits.
"This is not a question of mainly getting more money for me; it is a matter of justice," said James Marr. "It's the question of who is in the political science department."
"We're not a bunch of Berkeley radicals demanding a change in foreign policy; we just want to exercise a basic American right to join a union and have our concerns represented at a bargaining table," added Martel, who joined about 200 pickets as classes were to begin.
Union representatives claimed that hundreds of classes were canceled on the first day of the two-day strike. The university did not have any classes until the end of seses, but a Berkley spokesman called the protest most symbolic.
All 3,200 graduate assistants took part in the walkout. There are about 9,000 graduate students at Berkeley.
A victory by the Berkeley students could legitimize similar demands in many more campuses, said David Levine, director of the association's executive board.
In the last to years, at least five major universities in Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Oregon and New York have provided student assistants as employees.
The university contends that the work cannot be considered employment because it is so intertwined with educational experience, Debley said. Students receive annual stipends from the university or research institutions averaging about $10,000 annually.
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