By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The $14 billion bailout plan for U.S. automakers that failed last week would have helped more than just Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. Federal judges might have gotten a pay raise as well.

The U.S. Senate failed to reach an agreement Thursday night on a measure to provide bridge loans to the Big Three U.S. automakers by a vote of 52-35, ending debate on the measure.

The raise - an annual cost of living adjustment, or COLA - would have brought U.S. District court judges up to par with members of Congress, who will receive a boost of almost $5,000 Jan. 1. District judges and lawmakers earn $169,300 a year but are expected to be awarded a 2.8 percent raise next year, said Dick Carelli, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., insisted that the judicial pay raise go into the automaker loan measure.

Under ethics legislation enacted almost two decades ago, members of Congress get a cost-of-living raise automatically, but have to vote to give judges an identical raise. A spending bill covering U.S. courts also did not pass.

The Senate passed the judicial-pay measure as a separate bill in November, but the House never acted. A House Democratic leadership aide said that while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., supports the pay raise, it was difficult for the House to hold a standalone vote in the midst of a recession to increase the pay for people making far more than most workers.

As a result, Reid took the unusual step of linking the obscure but important judicial-pay issue to the unpopular auto bailout.

There is concern among many policymakers that judges are not paid enough relative to the importance of their offices, and in six of the past 13 years, judges have been denied their pay raise as lawmakers opted not to take their own COLA.

Even with the raise, judges earn far less than lawyers at big firms, just as members of Congress make less than many lobbyists.

Judges are likely to get the increase as one of the first pieces of business next year.