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SD lawmakers declare state of ’emergency’ to force repeal of ethics law
- Analemma_ 10y agoThey really don't even try, do they?
- caseysoftware 10y agoIf you want to "bribe" someone, you don't hand them cash. You fly them to that industry conference in Hawaii in February. You give their spouse a non-job. You give them great interest rates on loans. You help their kid get into college. You buy the house next to theirs, tear it down, and make it a beautiful, lush lawn. * Those are all real situations. Protip: This is not a Republican vs Democrat issue.. just people getting massive kickbacks for using their power in specific ways.
- pdoege 10y agoThe article clearly identifies this as a Republican issue in both SD and ND?
- vacri 10y ago> Lawmakers who are found guilty of violating the act face $1,000 in fines and up to one year in prison. This seems to be a bizarrely asymmetric pair of punishments. Someone on higher than the average wage can pay $1k without blinking, but a year in prison is career-crippling.
- evgen 10y ago"Up to one year" has a very specific meaning. In most cases a crime that is not punishable by more than one year in prison is not a felony, in fact this is often the primary distinction between a misdemeanor and a felony.
- CodeWriter23 10y agoI once went on a blind date with a prosecutor from a large city, who worked in a department that investigated corrupt cops, lawyers, politicians and city employees. She said some of them were straight up psycholopaths that needed the book thrown at them. Others who had a singular lapse in judgment and found themselves on the wrong side of the law received some leniency. So penalties like this are to give the judge or jury a tool to remove someone permanently from the position they abuse, or to give them an opportunity to make amends. Or re-offend but second offenses often carry stiffer penalties.
- toyg 10y agoDunno about US but in most European countries, convictions under 2 years are almost invariably suspended (often automatically) for first offences. So you technically need two convictions, and at that point you could argue that career-crippling is warranted.
- CodeWriter23 10y agoI'm not a lawyer but it seems kind of like these politicians might be setting themselves up to become targets of a RICO investigation.
- stevew20 10y agoI'm curious as to what emergency the state is going through right now. At face value it only seems to be an emergency of abuse of power and breach of ethics...