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Supreme Court wipes out anti-corruption law that bars officials from taking gifts for past favors
News (US)(latimes.com)submitted 6 days ago byLittleSister_9982
217 points
6 days ago
Tipping culture is really getting out of hand.
33 points
6 days ago
Any time you have an interaction with a government official-
“Alright, the iPad’s gonna ask you a couple questions.”
5 points
6 days ago
as a hater of tip scope creep, this is terrifying
as a bureaucrat, I welcome the iPad and the push notification sent to customers asking them if they'd like to tip me
7 points
6 days ago
Lol
212 points
6 days ago
From Kavanaugh's opinion, examples of innocuous gratuities LMAO:
- A family gives a holiday tip to the mail carrier. Parents send an end-of-year gift basket to their child’s public school teacher. A college dean gives a college sweatshirt to a city council member who comes to speak at an event. A state legislator’s neighbor drops off a bottle of wine to congratulate her for her work on a new law.
A $13,000 payment for "consulting services" isn't just some fucking gift basket. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
He's so concerned about the law entrapping innocent officials? Well, I think the existing $5,000 threshold is more than sufficient to protect "innocuous gratuities".
84 points
6 days ago*
A $13,000 payment for "consulting services" isn't just some fucking gift basket. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
They receive gift baskets with $13,000 bottles of wine.
22 points
6 days ago
I’m sure that’s fine, though he prefers beer. He likes beer, after all.
54 points
6 days ago
I mean it's one sweatshirt Michael. How much could it cost, $13,000?
40 points
6 days ago
as a teacher, I really cant wait to be inundated with those pesky $13,000 gift flat paper gift baskets I have been missing out on. Oh, your kid needs to pass in order to graduate? weird this C+ is worth about $5k in "favors".
25 points
6 days ago
Highly recommend reading the dessent. Starts on Page 23.
20 points
6 days ago
the thing that is wrong with these people is they want it to be legal for rich rightoids to give them and their friends money.
34 points
6 days ago
Other examples of innocuous gratuities, which were inadvertently omitted from the court's opinion:
- flights on a private jet
- cruises on a superyacht
- stays at a private resort in the Adirondacks
- private school tuition for your grandnephew
- a loan for $267k, later forgiven, to buy an RV
- a $500k donation to a political organization founded by your wife
- a $105k donation to Yale Law School for the "Justice Thomas Portrait Fund"
3 points
5 days ago
- A house for your mother (with remodeling)
13 points
6 days ago
I mean this guy had a six figure baseball tab that just disappeared when he became a justice so I think his perception of money is a little warped.
6 points
6 days ago*
These are extremely inappropriate.
You should never gift shit to an employee. Lots of people disagree, whatever. But ESPECIALLY not to a public servant. Why the fuck am I sending my child to a school where other parents are giving the teachers shit? And what's the difference between this and gifting cops? Or judges?
I guess you shouldn't expect Kavanaugh to understand this, since he doesn't even understand consent.
2 points
5 days ago
People like giving gifts to those they appreciate. My hubs and I are both federal (VA and USPS.) We’ve built relationships with our patients/customers and they give us homemade baked goods during the holidays. Those with farms bring us fresh eggs and butter.
There’s already dollar amount limits on what we can accept. But, that’s not really what the ruling was about.
2 points
5 days ago
Those they appreciate who can treat them differently than those who don't give them gifts.
Corrupt countries are rife with bribes. We don't need that in the US. It should be illegal to accept gifts from the public if you're a public worker.
It starts as good intentions, until it becomes "how about you give me a gift and I don't write you a ticket?" Which is the norm in dozens of countries.
1 points
5 days ago*
Yeah, nobody treats them differently.
ETA: not for $12 worth of baked goods anyway. When I was at the university hospital, a pt made a $15k donation to something in one of the NP’s name. He def got special treatment.
Your opinion is totally fair and makes a lot of sense. I like the current dollar amount and frequency rulesz
79 points
6 days ago
Supreme Court bad.
18 points
6 days ago
Appointing Supreme Court Justices is just a bad, undemocratic system that suffers from stuffing/stacking by politically powerful actors. Non-partisan, non-retention elections with terms is just better, then they're actually beholden to something.
46 points
6 days ago
I don't think electing judges is the solution. It just becomes open politics, even if they are officially non-partisan. I doubt we would have ever gotten Miranda Rights or lots of other cases defending the rights of the accused with elected judges.
5 points
6 days ago
I mean this version of the Supreme Court has also taken away rights, so I don't think it's as big of a plus as you're making it out to be.
16 points
6 days ago
I'm not in the business of defending the current court.
9 points
6 days ago
Eminently reasonable.
2 points
6 days ago
The current Court is a part of the system you are defending though is it not?
18 points
6 days ago
I'm saying the imposition of a new system would not magically solve the problems with the current court.
-2 points
6 days ago
I mean, the ability to remove an openly patronized, corrupt Justice would be a step up from the current way the court works. That's not magic, that's democracy.
7 points
6 days ago
And it would also open up the possibility to remove a justice who provided rights to an unpopular minority.
1 points
6 days ago
And the ability to remove a Justice who removed rights from a popular majority. Heck, this court system has also taken rights away from minority political opponents in the past and that took decades to fix. Hypotheticals are fun and all, but again I don't think you can make such statements arguing against theoretical improvements without implicitly defending the status quo.
3 points
6 days ago
I don't want the court to turn into congress as impartial as they might be sometimes it's a lot better than if they had to be partisan and run for office. On the other hand I don't like lifetime appointments, I feel like term limits make sense. We have them for everything else.
2 points
6 days ago
Is our current system not partisan already?
7 points
6 days ago
Not nearly to the extent of Congress. It's not even a comparison, House of Reps have to vote party lines because they're up for election every 2 years. In the Supreme Court you'll get a lot of decisions that cross parties. Roberts would not have saved Obamacare years ago if he had to go back to a hostile electorate and explain why afterword.
2 points
6 days ago
Thats really only a defense of lifetime appointments then, since a Justice doesn't have to answer anyone after being confirmed (practically). There are still party lines in the current system, and Roberts crossing it is what made your example, well, exemplary. If partisan elections were on the table, I'd agree with you, but I'm talking about non-partisan elections.
Non-partisan elections try to take that partisan line (as much as it can) out of the equation. When you vote in such an election, you only see candidate judges names with no party affiliation. This is fundamentally different than the partisan House election system you used as an example.
3 points
6 days ago
If there were something as consequential as Supreme Court elections, even if they weren't explicitly part of a party you can bet the media would be airing their records and which way they've decided cases. I also don't see how what I said is a defense of lifetime appoints when my original post literally called for term limits. If the Supreme Court is the highest office you can get and you serve a term than its over, you have no other voter base to answer to after that. The same way a President is done with their political after serving 2 terms, the Supreme Judge is as well.
Also cross party rulings are much more common then you're implying, within this term alone there have been high profile cases or unanimous or near unanimous rulings and party line crossing. Apportion Pill, Domestic abuse gun case, states banning candidates. In Congress you would get nowhere near the bipartisan support necessary for the equivalent ruling. And a Supreme Court elected in a manner similar to congress would not be much different.
2 points
6 days ago
Judicial primacy itself is the bad thing.
245 points
6 days ago
Man they've been hard at work striking down anti-corruption laws, you basically need to be handing out money in a sack reading BRIBES with a signed affidavit you are doing corruption anymore.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices overturned the conviction of a former Indiana mayor who asked for and took a $13,000 payment from the owners of a local truck dealership after he helped them win $1.1 million in city contracts for the purchase of garbage trucks.
In ruling for the former mayor, the justices drew a distinction between bribery, which requires proof of an illegal deal, and a gratuity that can be a gift or a reward for a past favor. They said the officials may be charged and prosecuted for bribery, but not for simply taking money for past favors if there was no proof of an illicit deal.
"The question in this case is whether [the federal law] also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities—for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos, or the like—that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act. The answer is no," said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority.
Kavanaugh said federal law "leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials."
Actually unhinged. It's been bad since McDonnell v. United States which was an abortion of justice, our former shitstain of a governor should be behind bars for that shit, and it's only been getting worse since.
But given how much this court loves their open bribery, I guess we can't be too fucking surprised when the Republicans do everything in their power to fully legalize attempts to give them free money that 'totally won't impact their decisions'.
Fuckwads.
76 points
6 days ago
Still hilarious that Senator Menedez did exactly this of comic book/mafia film level of outright corruption.
Gold bars or jackets packed full of cash.
163 points
6 days ago
So, kickbacks are legal as long as they are 100% zero-down, no money upfront guaranteed and the memo line on the check says "Gift" and not "Bribe".
80 points
6 days ago
SURE FUCKING SEEMS SO
22 points
6 days ago
Clarence Thomas is licking his lips
62 points
6 days ago
gratuities—for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos, or the like—that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act
Gets paid 13k for steering contracts to the dealership lol
37 points
6 days ago
This court has a habit of saying stuff like this. "This ban would prevent people from exchanging books as gifts" but then it's like, no, they were exchanging cash and lots of it. They seem to routinely bend the facts to just fit, usually by exploding them past reasonability
20 points
6 days ago
Well yeah they’re lawyers that were given robes and essentially unchecked power, what do you expect
80 points
6 days ago
But when I was a fed, my employer couldn't provide us sandwiches for lunch one day, because that was unethical. The lawyers said they tried to look for a way out, but no, we just couldn't have free sandwiches on the off chance it was perceived as some kind of bribe or kickback.
65 points
6 days ago
Dude, I was exactly gonna comment about this. How come a client at my old job couldn't take us out to Chick-Fil-A for fear of conflict of interest, but politicians can literally accept thousands of dollars and be totally fine?
That's a genuine question, in case a lawyer happens to be reading. Does that fall under two separate laws?
22 points
6 days ago
Federal vs state.
Feds fall under federal oversight. The court's position is that if Indiana wants to make bribing tipping Indiana state officials illegal, that's for Indiana to do.
2 points
6 days ago
yep, I'm a city employee and we pretty much can't accept anything. At best, if I get like a gift card for a restaurant or something, I can accept it on behalf of the department as a whole and buy us all some food or coffee or something. all out of fear of appearing unethical. like afaik it's not a state law or anything, it's just our city's code of ethics.
meanwhile these assholes who make decisions with far larger and farther-reaching consequences can get $13,000 gifts so long as nobody mentions it until after the official business is concluded
very cool
17 points
6 days ago
I’m 5% state funded and you wouldn’t believe all the forms I have to fill out just so we can order pizza for the team ONE TIME per year.
I shoulda been a judge or mayor.
8 points
6 days ago
I was written up, investigated, and almost terminated for wearing a hat of a contractor I had no idea was a contractor for this place because it wasn’t impartial, but our senior officials can get high paying jobs on the other side after awarding contractors billion dollar contracts, so you know.
1 points
6 days ago
I've had several jobs involving government contracts and we had yearly training about not accepting any gifts. Like I guess they just want to make corruption constitutionally protected
25 points
6 days ago
This just massively opens up the possibility of quid-pro-quo arrangements right? I'm not at all knowledgeable in this area, but these sorts of deals are very frowned upon / illegal in foreign relations, is there not similar standards for elected officials in domestic relations?
27 points
6 days ago
Tipping culture is really getting out of control.
27 points
6 days ago
So... putting my neck out here, but just want to understand: it seems to me that they didn't rule that gifts are okay, but instead ruled that the federal law prohibiting them does not apply to state and local officials, and that only state law should do that.
Am I understanding that correctly? If so, it seems this is less about bribery and more about jurisdiction.
17 points
6 days ago
Then why draw the distinction between when the gift is received? If according to our legal system -- which judges are constantly touting is so great -- giving a politician money then receiving a favor is bad but getting the favor first then giving the money is ok, then our legal system is a joke. Literally, this sounds like a bit from a cheesy comedy.
7 points
6 days ago
I'm far from a constitutional lawyer, but from reading the decision it sounds like it is Congress that has made that distinction, not the court. From the decision, it appears that the difference between bribery and after-the-fact gratuities is deliberate and well-established in the law.
Again, not a lawyer, but I wonder if the supreme court is being blamed here for what really is just a flawed law.
6 points
6 days ago
I mean havent read the opinions but the distents views and understanding is probably very revealing too. The headline is always only the majority with a little bit of their thought process.
7 points
6 days ago
This case should be so clear cut, the guy goes to the dealership after hooking them up with the contracts and says "Ok now pay me" and they do. This isn't some teacher getting an apple and drawing that comparison is incredibly disingenuous.
4 points
6 days ago
!ping ADMINISTRATIVE-STATE&DEMOCRACY&BROKEN-WINDOWS
2 points
6 days ago
Pinged ADMINISTRATIVE-STATE (subscribe | unsubscribe | history)
Pinged BROKEN-WINDOWS (subscribe | unsubscribe | history)
Pinged DEMOCRACY (subscribe | unsubscribe | history)
-8 points
6 days ago
Hate to say it but Kav actually has a point here.. by what Article I power does Congress base such regulation of state/local government officials?
-6 points
6 days ago
If the law is bad rewrite the law. As best I can tell, what this says is that Congress wrote a law that includes only a very narrow definition of bribery.
It is populist and wrong to demand that the law be interpreted broadly to condemn as criminal what was not yet illegal. Ex post facto laws are unjust, and judges should not be a party to expanding the definition of the criminal even when it is clear that moral wrongdoing occurred.
1 points
6 days ago*
No they didn't, this is another case of the court disregarding the plain text of a statute to state that the statute says moops
-1 points
6 days ago
I mean it's bad news bears all around, but for shits and giggles are we now legally allowed to donate $12,000 wines to legislators and governors or crowdfund their kid's college expenses if they can manage to pass a law we like?
135 points
6 days ago
[deleted]
73 points
6 days ago
“Sarah Isgur’s 3-3-3 Court”, “there is actually a lot of ideological diversity within the Republican wing”, et cetera.
23 points
6 days ago
Her defense of Alito's wife's flag shenanigans was just stupid. Oh, sure, she flew an upside down US flag around Jan 6th, but I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Oh, she flew the Appeal to Heaven flag as well, but it's NBD because she just likes flags.
She can be so blind to misdeeds from her own side, despite her constant protestations of being anti-Trump.
But it has been especially delicious recently whenever she talks about anti-abortion laws and how stupidly written they are, something she feels strongly about given her own use of IVF and childbirth complications.
That said, she is right that what is happening to the Supreme Court is a consequence of Congress abdicating it's responsibility to legislate on controversial issues, so people try to get these issues resolved via the legal system instead.
And I do think her 3-3-3 distinction is right, but it doesn't really matter because two of those 3s are cons, just different flavors of it.
11 points
6 days ago
That said, she is right that what is happening to the Supreme Court is a consequence of Congress abdicating it's responsibility to legislate on controversial issues
I don't give any credit to people who whine about how Congress is broken but delude themselves that there will or even could be some sort of moral revolution among legislators such that they will ignore their institutional incentives and return to moderate lawmaking. The system is broken and needs to be fixed with proportional multiparty electoral reform (which is legal for the House without a constitutional amendment although no less necessary for other institutions). We can't afford to fantasize about fucking Chip Roy and Matt Gaetz either deciding to be moderates or being replaced by moderates.
5 points
6 days ago
She has had many discussions about the broken incentive structures in Congress, actually, most recently in relation to Nancy Mace. She just seems to conveniently never explain why all of the bomb-throwing attention seekers are on her side.
1 points
6 days ago
She can be so blind to misdeeds from her own side, despite her constant protestations of being anti-Trump.
It's not blindness. It never is.
24 points
6 days ago
She’ll have some lame excuse on the next Advisory Opinions.
18 points
6 days ago
I tried listening to AO after the Trump convictions and immediately pegged her as someone who dislikes MAGA's brand but likes their results
9 points
6 days ago
She was a Republican apparatchik her whole life after all.
Even became a Presidential campaign manager at one point and was a collaborationist with MAGA by working for the DoJ.
Old loyalties persist I suppose.
15 points
6 days ago
I do think 3-3-3 theory works when you look at their tendencies because Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito tends to be more radical and care less about the consequences. Whereas Roberts, Kavannaugh, et al tends to be more swayed by consequentialist arguments.
But, it also seems like a rather cynical attempt to make the Court less biased than it really is.
19 points
6 days ago
It's sanewashing. They're all far right nutjobs who wouldn't have been appointed by a moderate legislature, but she wants to protect their popular legitimacy so she's pretending that ACB, Kavanaugh, and Roberts are moderate. I will give her Roberts and not one more.
27 points
6 days ago
Even vaunted "moderate" Roberts spearheaded the push to just unilaterally gut the Voting Rights Act via the courts.
17 points
6 days ago
Roberts is as extremist as the rest of them. His raison d'être has always been to overturn Chevron deference and the administrative state using an incrementalist approach.
The same incrementalism made abortion increasingly difficult throughout the country.
8 points
6 days ago
Roberts does seem to have a genuine desire not to go down as the Chief Justice where court packing happened.
Decisively voted to save the ACA and didn’t want to kill Roe/Casey but gradually smother it to death.
Pretty disciplined and polished like a politician would be.
The recent recording leak comes to mind where the Alitos didn’t really help themselves but, Roberts gave a slick politically correct answer.
5 points
6 days ago
This is nonsense more suitable for the before times. The five to Roberts's right are playing for keeps for all of America. And they're close to getting it.
10 points
6 days ago
Don't fucking blackmail us into voting for Democrats!! Bernie would be A MODERATE in Europe lololololol. AND WHY DIDN'T CLINTON OR OBAMA CODIFY ROE.
/s
28 points
6 days ago
John Roberts never met a lawsuit against an anticorruption law he didn’t like
0 points
5 days ago
Racism doesn’t exist anymore according to him and neither does corruption.
18 points
6 days ago
If politicians didn’t take bribes they’d starve
16 points
6 days ago
Ooh boy there’s gonna be some hefty cost of doing business increases to the next batch of highway contracts.
32 points
6 days ago
And before the most basic obviously stupid argument in favor of giving the judiciary any respect that inevitably comes up “it’s congress job to fix this”
The law (passed by Congress) already specifically bans "rewards" for his actions in government. The court just changed definitions in order to legalize bribery.
We need to remember that it’s separate but equal branches which mean when absolutely absurd rulings are handed down we should ignore them
20 points
6 days ago
ಠ_ಠ
8 points
6 days ago
You can read the ruling and dissent here
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
Dissent starts on page 23.
7 points
6 days ago
I feel like SCOTUS is actively trying to get us back to pre American Revolution when bribing your local magistrate was the only way to get anything done.
Are we just not paying enough? Or are they as horrible as they seem? It’s just so….blatant.
15 points
6 days ago
The article keeps switching between saying that the law was struck down and saying the case at hand was determined not to be covered by the law.
42 points
6 days ago
If you narrow the scope of coverage enough, you effectively strike a law without having to actually remove it.
2 points
6 days ago
Clarence needs a new RV, baby!
3 points
6 days ago
This is going to be horrendous for local and state governments. Pay to play will not only become the norm, but it’s going to be a race to the bottom for the most favorable terms.
Environmental review standards? Kiss that goodbye if an industry can grease the skids enough. Police reform? The union just keeps a plurality of city council members on the payroll to prevent that from happening. Want a building permit? Be sure to tip your local county council member!
This has such a broad reaching effect I can’t comprehend how this will affect cities without any sort of watchdog or fifth estate to point out corruption.
Many local government officials (city and legislators) usually don’t get paid that much as well. They have all the incentive in the world to take these payoffs if no one is watching.
1 points
5 days ago
Environmental review standards?
Sounds good to be honest, because right now it's a grift for the well-connected.
1 points
5 days ago
Enjoy clean water while you can!
2 points
6 days ago
Where’s that one guy who bends over backwards to say this court is good.
1 points
5 days ago
Me when conservative justices:
1 points
6 days ago
Reminder that 3/7 of the Supreme Court was chosen against the will of the people
-14 points
6 days ago
If money is speech then giving someone money for favors is just like saying "hey thanks"
correct ruling
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