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> 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 punis

• 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 ago
  I 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 ago
  Dunno 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.