In a 6-3 party-line vote, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that state officials can accept “gratuities” from people who seek to reward them for their official actions, overturning a federal anti-corruption law that prohibits such rewards. in spite of
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion Snyder v. United States For the court’s Republican-appointed majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent on behalf of three of the court’s Democratic appointees.
Snyder Introduces a distinction between “bribe” and “gratuity”. As Kavanaugh writes, “Bribery is the giving or agreeing to pay before An official act to influence the official in respect of that future official act.” Grant, by contrast, “is usually given to an official. after An official act as a mark of appreciation.” (Emphasis added.)
If that seems like an insignificant difference, the facts of this case will likely only underscore that sentiment.
The case involves James Snyder, a former mayor who accepted a $13,000 gratuity from a truck company when the city bought five trash trucks from that company for $1.1 million. Snyder claimed the money was a consulting fee, but federal prosecutors charged him with violating anti-corruption laws.
The law prohibits public officials from “corruptly” “accepting anything of value from any person”. Desire to impress or rewardfor an official act.
As Jackson wrote in his dissent, the most natural reading of the statute is that it targets both bribes (payments that “influence” future decisions) and gratuities (that “reward” past decisions). As Jackson wrote,
Everyone knows what the prize is. It’s a $20 bill pulled from a lost wallet on its way back to its grateful owner. A surprise ice cream outing followed by a report card with straight As. The bar tab is a supervisor celebrating a job well done by his team. An award often says “thank you” or “good job” rather than “please.”
Jackson argues that “the statute should be read to prohibit rewards corruptly accepted by public officials that are effectively indistinguishable from bribery,” much like the payments at issue in this case.
Kavanaugh’s majority opinion, meanwhile, relies heavily on policy arguments and other claims that go beyond the statute’s text. He tries to make a textual argument—Cavanaugh points out that the law is at issue Snyderlike a A different law deals only with briberyuses the term “corruptly” — but his best arguments are textual.
Kavanaugh’s strongest argument is that the law makes it a very serious crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for a federal official to accept a bribe, but federal officials who accept a gratuity face only two years in prison. Meanwhile, the statute at issue Snyder, which applies only to state officials, carries a 10-year sentence across the board. Kavanaugh therefore argues that it would be odd to read the statute to draw a sharp distinction between bribes and gratuities given to federal officials but no distinction to be made when state officials accept gifts.
In any situation, decision Snyder The statute does not rule that Congress cannot prohibit gratuities. It simply rules that this particular law only reaches bribes. That said, the court’s Republican majority also has a long history Imposition of constitutional limits On the fight against corruption and on the government’s ability to limit money in politics.
It is also notable that Justice Clarence Thomas or Justice Samuel Alito, both Accepts expensive gifts From politically active Republican billionaires, withdrew themselves from the case. Both Thomas and Alito joined Kavanaugh’s opinion in narrowly reading the anti-corruption law.
