4 ms·

We can call it by many names - lobbying, campaign contributions, gifts, free speech. Do not, under any circumstances call it corruption or bribery, those words

• yieldcrv 2y ago
  It’s only corruption and bribery when it’s about another country’s officials.
• JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > lobbying, campaign contributions, gifts, free speech You’re conflating civics 101 actions. Lobbying is non-cash. Campaign contributions and PAC contributions are cash but not personal. All of the above are related to free speech. Gifts are personal. That is what this article describes. Companies can legitimately provide gifts to electeds; think of sending samples to a committee considering regulating your company. This obviously doesn’t look like that. But playing dumb with basic civic terms doesn’t advance the conversation. (And if you legitimately don’t understand the difference between these terms, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to educate yourself.)
  • actionfromafar 2y ago
    As long as you get the gift after you have done the deed, it's just a gift, isn't that the ruling?
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > long as you get the gift after you have done the deed, it's just a gift, isn't that the ruling? What ruling? Generally, no, accepting gifts in exchange for official actions is illegal (and punished) irrespective of whether payment is made up front or in arrears [1]. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-senator-robert-menendez-his-wife-and-three-new-jersey-businessmen-charged-bribery https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-senator-robert-menen...
      • mikeyouse 2y ago
        The most recent supreme court ruling from a few weeks ago dramatically narrowed the Federal bribery laws; https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...
      • iaresee 2y ago
        https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf is I believe what they're referencing. And it definitely muddied the water.
        • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
          Agree. But it doesn’t solely condition corruption on the timing of the payment. (We’ll have to see how it works in practice. McDonnell was similarly criticised, but wound up being much less impactful in practice [1].) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States
          • iaresee 2y ago
            Oh yea, I agree. It's a twist, but not a get-out-of-corruption-free card.
        • rayiner 2y ago
          That case doesn’t muddy the water, because it doesn’t address the requirements of bribery law at all. In the trial below, the prosecutors disavowed that they were proceeding on a bribery theory. The jury was never instructed about the required elements of bribery. The only thing the Supreme Court decided in that case was whether that specific statute encompasses a gratuity theory. That’s illegal for federal officials under a different statute that was not invoked in this case.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • deleted 2y ago
    • cogman10 2y ago
      The most recent bribery rulings have basically been that for it to be a bribe, there has to be a direct connection to the gift and the action. Practically "I am passing bill 123 because of my sponsor foo. Foo, always the best" There will be different state laws, but the federal law is particularly toothless at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States?wpr...
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > the federal law is particularly toothless at this point Untrue per the “legal citations” section of your own article. Scope was narrowed. But in the two times it was tested the precedent ultimately resulted in a conviction (Menendez) or upholding of punishment (Cash for Kids).
        • cogman10 2y ago
          You can still eat soup without teeth. Just because someone has been caught doesn't mean the law isn't significantly weaker than it should be. Menendez is a good example for this. This isn't the first time he's been brought up on bribery charges, it's the second. The first was dropped because of the McDonnell ruling. Really, you pretty much have to be the dumbest most corrupt politician imaginable before you are caught in this law's net. McDonnell shows what bribery can look like and it's pretty egregious. McDonnell was hosting and publicly promoting products from Star Scientific while receiving lavish gifts from them. Rolexs, loan, vacations, etc. Do you think if something that would harm Star Scientific came across McDonnell's desk he wouldn't act in their favor? Yet because he doesn't specifically say "I'm doing this for you guys" it's legal. That's why the law is toothless. So long as a politician isn't an absolute moron like Menendez, they are free to accept "gifts" from anyone for anything. They just can't then turn around and write down "Oh, ok, I'll make sure to pass bill 123 for you"... like Menendez did.
          • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
            > you pretty much have to be the dumbest most corrupt politician imaginable before you are caught in this law's net I agree. But toothless means toothless. The snare still catches. The law needs to be tighter. But to do that we should be able to agree that the current law is weak. Not toothless. If it’s toothless, there is no point clamping down.
    • rayiner 2y ago
      If we are talking about the recent Supreme Court ruling, no. https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop... Under federal law, as applicable to federal officials, there’s a distinction between bribes and gratuities. Both are illegal for federal officials, under different statutes. There is also a federal law that makes it illegal to pay bribes to a state official. But there is no corresponding federal law making it illegal to pay bribes to a state official, though most states have their own gratuities laws. This distinction between bribes and gratuities is well established in the law. Bribes are about actual corruption. Gratuities are about the appearance of corruption. A bribe can be prosecuted whether the payment is before or after the official act. But there must be some proof that the payment influenced or was meant to influence the official act. Paying a Christmas gift to your mailman is not a bribe. What happened in the recent Supreme Court case is that federal prosecutors prosecuted a state official under the federal bribery statute, where the official was paid for consulting services after allegedly steering government contracts to a trucking company. The prosecution could have tried to prove that the contracts were steered in anticipation of the later consulting work. The prosecution, however, chose not to proceed on a bribery theory. It asserted that the statute (which is titled “bribery”) applied to gratuities as well. And when the jury was instructed on the law, the jury was specifically told that it did not need to find that the official act was influenced by the anticipation of receiving future consulting business. All the Supreme Court decided was that specific statute did not cover a gratuities theory. It sent the case back to the trial court; the government can now choose to retry the person and this time try to actually prove bribery.
  • kxrm 2y ago
    I am honestly perplexed by the recent history of "lobbying" being rolled up into bribery. Would love a linguistic interpretation of what is going on with that word.
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Would love a linguistic interpretation of what is going on with that word It’s a jumble caused by well-placed concerns around money in politics being written about by misinformed journalists [1]. Then the term gained political cachet on the left and, more recently, far right, which propagated its mis-use. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_State...
    • bluGill 2y ago
      There is no easy way to separate what is a bribe or not. Some things are obviously bribes. However a lobbyist will often pay for a meal for a politician and then the politician will vote against the lobbyist - so clearly a meal isn't a bribe. Note however that I only asserted that it happens, not how often, you can have your own interpretation of what how often it needs to work for a meal to turn into a bribe. I used meals, but there are lots of other hidden bribes. A common bribe is donate to my favorite charity - in some cases the CEO of the charity is the politicians brother in law (the is somewhat obvious) - but even if the charity is legitimate the donation can still be a bribe if the politician really believes in the cause. Ticket master of course can give someone a ticket with a face value of $49 - even though the show is sold out and the real street value is over $1000 (from the few scalpers you can find).
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • grecy 2y ago
    Thank you for arguing petty semantics and proving my point so well :) It is all bribery, plain and simple.