I agree with Jackson’s dissent. The phrase “or rewarded” textually covers an after the fact gift accepted with corrupt intent. The majority opinion’s handwave of this based on legislative history is a great example of why legislative history is a dangerous way to make judgments
I’m not a state official but I am a state employee and there are state laws governing what I can or can’t accept as gifts. And I didn’t think this would impact me at all.
AFAIK, state and local laws have taken cues from federal law but are independent of them in matters like this.
There’s also way too much room for wink-wink-nudge-nudge. “Hey, did you hear about the Supreme Court decision in Snyder v. United States? Interesting stuff, eh? So, are you interested in funding our project? It’d mean a lot to us. It’d save us at least ten million dollars, but we’d be happy with half of that.”
Republicans in Illinois have been screaming for decades about the corruption of former Dem House Speaker and power broker Michael Madigan (and FTR I agreed with them). A few years ago the feds finally indicted him, and his trial has been grinding along. Today, his attorneys are crowing about how this decision will lead to the charges being dropped.
I have no idea how accurate that may be, but I imagine all those Republicans will now take a good long look in the mirror and realize their foolishness in gaming the system to appoint so many Heritage Foundation recommendations to the SCOTUS.
Haha, just kidding! If the charges get dropped, they’ll find a way to blame Democrats.
That’s a subsection of “accepts or agrees to accept, intending to be rewarded”.
The “or rewarded” doesn’t stand on its own. It only comes into play after having accepted and having had an intent. I.e. you have to have had a pre-existing agreement.
To be sure, I am not saying that there shouldn’t be an emoluments law for public officials. It just happens to be that 666 isn’t one.
^ This.
The “We Love Corruption” decision came out after the Supposedly Accidental pre-release of the Idaho Abortion decision, yesterday.
And today all oxygen in the news media was taken up by a) The Debate (understandable) plus b) The Accidental Release of the Idaho decision (convenient). So no one had even one spare second for the We Love Corruption case.
That ‘accident’ was no accident.
Seriously. Again, folks: the Constitution says NOTHING about the number of Justices.
To the ‘that would just lead the other side to increase the number of Justices AGAIN’ arguments: everyone, left and right, can see that the Court is ridiculously out of balance, now. After balance is restored, what would their argument be?
One could argue that there should be a Justice for each Federal appellate court. Currently there are 13 Federal Courts of Appeals and only nine Justices.
Yes. I’ve never seen one convincing argument that ‘one Justice per Court of Appeals’ is unreasonable.
It only impacts you in the sense that before this decision, the Feds could possibly have prosecuted you for accepting a gratuity after the fact. ( The actual law uses agent and defines agent as including employee ) The decision has nothing to do with state law, so if state law forbids it, the state can prosecute someone who accepts a gratuity.
What I haven’t been able to find out is why Indiana didn’t prosecute him ( and why Illinois didn’t prosecute Blagojevich ) Did the states not have any laws about illegal gratuities, did the state defer to the Feds , or did the Feds step in because the states were ignoring the situation?
My read, via the excellent dissent, is that the majority does not restrict Congress’s power to criminalize the acceptance of a reward for corrupt purposes. Rather, they use convoluted logic to argue that the law in question covers only bribes and is irrelevant in prosecuting an after-the-fact corrupt payment.
It would also give companies an incentive to build up a reputation as a lavish gift-giver. If Company XYZ is well known for giving politicians $30 million gratuities several years after the completion of a contract, and does so very consistently, you can bet politicians will take extremely close notice of it.
No doubt. If you read the details of the crime in question, details the majority ignored or glossed over, it’s hard to think of a transaction that would smell worse. Snyder literally walked into the firm for which he engineered the contracts and said, “I need money.” And they gave it to him.
Most welcome. I was appalled when I read it, and the decision was getting very little attention with all the hoopla around the debate. People need to be aware of the stuff the Supreme Court is doing while they keep us entertained with distractions.
I calibrate my outrage over this via Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s. I consider her a North star of morality on the Court as it is currently comprised. She didn’t hesitate to show her disdain for her colleagues in her dissent:
Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.
That’s some heavy shade.
It seems to me that SCOTUS rulings should work to lessen the temptations to corrupt our government. Instead, this SCOTUS seems hellbent on making government as corrupt and untrustworthy as possible.
As others have noted, having been a public servant myself and scrupulously adhered to the required and necessary prohibitions to accept gifts of any kind, I’m offended down to my toes by this decision.
So I can call my Building Inspector at Christmas and say, “Hey, we had a hell of a year–here’s $10k for helping us get our client’s projects finished?” Because the inspector is a HUGE part of getting C/O and the clients in. That wouldn’t have any effect on future performance, right?
Thanks very much for all your help on this one. Please remember: the Senator is registered at Feadship.
Just ran across this:
Checking those…
That they want it to be out of balance in their direction, and that only a court out of balance in their direction is Right, Correct, and Just.
Or, for that matter, just that it wasn’t out of balance, but right where it belonged. What you can see isn’t what they’re seeing.
– and we’d still need 60 votes in the Senate to get anybody confirmed. Easier than getting a constitutional amendment through; but doesn’t look imminently likely.
- That particular filibuster has already been nuked.
No, intent and a pre-existing agreement aren’t the same thing.
“I never promised the governor anything beforehand. I only gave him a $5000 thank you gift after each one of those 30 state contracts were awarded to my company.”