The high court’s 6-3 opinion along ideological lines found the law criminalizes bribes given before an official act, not rewards handed out after.
Eg: it’s ok to give Supreme Court Justices money after they rule in your favor because it’s normal and ok to regularly hand them amounts much larger than their salary. The Democrats on the court were the dissenters.
The Supreme Court basically just ruled that it’s perfectly acceptable for officials to accept and even ask for bribes, just so long as they wait a few weeks after the service for which the bribe is meant to pay.
Seriously. That’s exactly what this ruling in effect says - that bribes are only bribes if they’re paid before the service is rendered, and if they’re paid after, that’s perfectly fine.
And people still wonder why I’m such a cynic…
It’s not a bribe, silly. It’s selling legislation.
With Net 45 terms
They actually called it a gratuity. Maybe not the worst ruling of all time but one of the most shameless.
They called it a gratuity to try to divert attention from the bludgeoningly obvious fact that it’s just a postdated bribe.
This is what this country has come to. In the face of an ever-growing failure of the government to represent the will of the people because their influence has been bought and paid for by moneyed interests, the Supreme Court is legalizing bribery.
Of course, it’s certainly not a coincidence that one of the institutions that’s been bought and paid for is the Supreme Court itself.
Not exactly the AP article is bad. You still can’t make an agreement before the act and get paid latter or ask for a payment latter.
However as long as you keep it sufficiently wink wink nudge nudge you are fine as intent now has to be proven.
But would it help to think of it as a tipping jar for officials?
It doesn’t help me, the only tip they need is to do their jobs better.
Does this now flow down as precedent for people who decide contracts?
I don’t see any possible way it couldn’t. Every official is going to expect a “gratuity” in exchange for approving a contract, and every contractor who expects to succeed is going to go into every deal with the understanding that they’re going to be expected to pay a “gratuity” after the deal is finalized.
The upshot of it all can only be wholly institutionalized pay-to-play, with only the ultimately entirely meaningless requirement that the payment has to be deferred instead of up front.