NATION IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Honorarium Ban Reinstatement Urged

The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to reinstate a ban on federal workers collecting fees for speaking or writing outside their jobs. The ban on honorariums, imposed by Congress in 1990 when lawmakers voted themselves a $27,000-a-year pay raise, was struck down last March as an unconstitutional infringement on the speech freedoms of federal workers. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the law was “unduly overinclusive” because it applied to all federal workers. The Justice Department argued a narrower ban could be circumvented.