Mo. Supreme Court Chief Justice calls for better juror pay
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court expressed gratitude as she delivered the 2025 State of the Judiciary to a joint session of the Missouri General Assembly Wednesday.
Chief Justice Mary Russell told lawmakers that her 20 years on the bench has been 'something this northeast Missouri farm girl never thought possible, even in her wildest dreams.'
While mostly shying away from political issues, Russell did ask legislators to pass something: increased compensation for jurors.
'Last year, you considered changing jurors' compensation, in part by tying their mileage rate to that of state employees,' the chief justice said. 'This year, please send these changes to the governor's desk.'
'Doing so will demonstrate respect for our jurors,' she said.
No savings expected from nearly 40% of DOGE-canceled contracts
Russell's main theme circled back to the 'frontline heroes' of Missouri's court system.
'During this term as chief justice, my goal has been to visit all 46 judicial circuits,' she said. 'I've been to 36 so far, with just 10 to go.'
Russell said what she has learned is an overwhelming commitment to serve.
'In every county, work begins before the courts open,' she said. 'Staff show up early, unlocking doors, turning up the heat and quite a few times so far this year shoveling snow.'
She also praised the technology side of the courts.
'Your support allows us to continue providing the high level of online services Missourians expect and deserve,' Russell said.
She also encouraged lawmakers assembled as well as members of the public to participate in the process.
'Please go watch a court proceeding,' Russell said. 'Experience it first-hand and thank the court staff for all they do.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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They met fierce resistance from Republican luminaries such as Newt Gingrich, Larry Kudlow, Sean Hannity, Mike Johnson, and Ted Cruz. And the ultimate enforcer of tax-cutting orthodoxy, Grover Norquist, recently compared any Republicans willing to consider tax increases to a ' little cancer cell in the party.' Trump himself has tried to have it both ways, toying with the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy to cater to his populist base without actually doing anything to forestall his tax-cut extensions. His gesture toward putting America on a sounder financial footing is to argue that his tariffs can play an important role in replacing income-tax revenues. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that, under certain configurations, tariffs could raise significant additional revenues over the next decade. But all credible projections suggest that tariffs will be unable to compensate for the lost income tax. They are also a highly regressive form of taxation that may spark retaliation by other countries, result in higher inflation, and reduce both economic growth and the tax revenues that flow from it. Republicans who are serious about the deficit have several options. The most obvious one would be to close the gap between the tax revenues owed to the government and what it actually collects. The IRS estimates that in 2022, about 13 percent of taxes, totaling $606 billion, owed to the federal government under our existing tax code were not paid. Many analyses of federal tax policy and enforcement— including some by conservative scholars —have argued for beefing up the IRS, with a focus on high-net-worth individuals and households. Few investment opportunities yield a higher rate of return than IRS audits on upper-income filers, yet the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have moved in the other direction and sought to cut the agency's staff and funding. Other steps Republicans could take would aim to end tax breaks for the über-rich. Sunsetting the 2017 bill's higher estate-tax deductions, which now stand at $14 million for individuals and $28 million for married couples, would bring in an estimated $201 billion over the next 10 years. The state and local tax (better known as SALT) deduction changes in the proposed bill are extremely regressive, with much of the benefit flowing to upper-income households; they are another loophole that could be closed. Republicans could also raise revenue specifically for transportation infrastructure by increasing road-user fees and gas or mileage taxes. (The gasoline tax has been frozen at 18.4 cents a gallon for more than 30 years.) None of the above will be easy, or even possible, to achieve in this Congress. The Republican Party has come a long way from the days when Ronald Reagan raised taxes four times after his 1981 tax cuts led to higher projected deficits. The official posture of fiscal rectitude continues, but the GOP's $10 trillion secret—the amount that tax cuts have contributed to the national debt—is that, if forced to choose, many on the anti-tax right would prefer bigger deficits to higher taxes. The United States no longer has that luxury. The government's interest payments have become larger than its defense expenditures, debt-rating agencies are downgrading the U.S., bond traders are demanding higher yields on U.S. treasuries, and risks to the dollar as the world's reserve currency are piling up. To redeploy Thune's phrase, something is 'seriously wrong' with a party that worries about running deficits yet refuses to consider any sustainable way to pay for them—and instead slashes services to its rural and working-class constituents. Rigid principle must give way to pragmatism: Any genuine deficit-reduction conversation needs to include not just spending cuts but higher revenues.
