Sen. Cornyn Receives 3 Public Pensions Plus Senate Salary

Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn last year supplemented his Senate salary with three public pensions, bringing in some $65,383 in public retirement benefits to add to his $174,000 a year salary for serving as senator.

The Texas Republican was elected to the Senate in 2002, and is a former district judge, state Supreme Court justice and state attorney general, reports The National Journal.

His largest pension, for $48,807, came through the Judicial Retirement System of Texas, earned while serving on the state Supreme Court from 1991 to 1997.

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Cornyn, 61, reported another $10,132 in pension benefits from the Employees Retirement System of Texas, a fund for state elected officials and workers, after serving as attorney general from 1999 to 2002.

Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, disclosed in a series of amendments he began filing last year that he had been collecting the $10,122 pension since 2006, but had not listed it on his original disclosure reports from 2006 through 2010.

The senator also reported receiving a $6,444 retirement distribution from the Texas County and District Retirement System, earned serving as a state district judge from 1985 to 1989.

While critics complain about "double dipping," Cornyn is not the only prominent Texas Republican to draw both a public pension and a public salary. In December 2011, it was revealed Gov. Rick Perry supplemented his $150,000 governor's salary with a state pension of more than $92,000.

Perry defended the earnings, saying during the 2012 presidential primary that he thinks it "would be rather foolish to not access what you've earned."