The Supreme Court Rules on Government Integrity – LOL, LOL, LOL

  Clarence Thomas & “Gifts”  

 Indiana Mayor James Synder

  Indiana Mayor James Synder

The Supreme Court Rules on Government Integrity – LOL, LOL, LOL

“Gratuities Are Us”

Two years ago, the Trump-reconfigured Supreme Court reversed its own precedent (Dobbs reversing Roe) but has let stand decisions that have resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths like Heller v DC (a 2008 ruling which, using originalism, expanded the 2nd Amendment, for the first time in over two centuries, creating a ubiquitous fundamental right for Americans to have guns with few restrictions). But wait, there’s more.

In the last week of June of this year, the Court battered federal administrative agencies, effectively emasculating several key agencies charged by Congress with protecting Americans from all sorts of harms. The Chevron Deference (where courts defer to experts at governmental agencies created by Congress) has been denigrated, pushing decisions requiring serious educated expertise and experience, to federal courts with only general knowledge, often appointed for political, not pragmatic reasons. The Court also handcuffed the EPA against acting to curtail greenhouse gasses, the SEC from stemming corporate fraud in financial statements, the FDA from asserting its definitive testing and approval process, to name but a few of the obvious anti-consumer/person rulings.

The same six justice conservative SCOTUS panel, that has been dramatically unable to address the most obvious need for an enforceable body of cannons of ethics for themselves (dealing with receipt of “gifts” from biased donors and sitting in judgment on issues with which they or their spouses were actively involved), ruled in Snyder vs United States that post-government actions that generated serious “gratuities” to the relevant government actors were not crimes. Specifically, not crimes under Congress’ extended the federal bribery law (passed in 1986) to cover officials of state or local agencies that receive federal funds. The measure made it a crime to “corruptly solicit or demand ... or accept ... anything of value of $5,000 or more ... intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business or transaction.”

So those “wink-wink” governmental official’s expectations from relevant parties who directly benefited by an award of a government contract, passage of a bill or issue of a judicial opinion… where you cannot adequately prove a “deal before the government action”… are peachy-keen and just the way we do business in the Banana Republic of the United States of America. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion opened a Pandora’s Box of corruption. He makes distinction between “bribes” and “gratuities.” As Kavanaugh writes, “bribes are payments made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the official with respect to that future official act.” Given the litany of probusiness, MAGA-leaning rulings, is the Court trying to insulate itself from its own lack of ethical restrictions on conflicts of interest and accepting massive “gifts” from donors with unequivocal political agendas?

Writing for the June 27th Los Angeles Times, David Savage addresses their corruption ruling Snyder vs US (6/26): “[The Court] struck down part of a federal anti-corruption law that makes it a crime for state and local officials to take gifts valued at more than $5,000 from a donor who had previously been awarded lucrative contracts or other government benefits thanks to the efforts of the official… 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 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.

“Despite his reference to token gifts such as lunches and framed photos, the federal law was triggered only by payments of more than $5,000.

“But the court’s conservative majority said the law in question was a ‘bribery statute, not a gratuities law.’ Kavanaugh said federal law ‘leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.’

“Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented… ‘Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions,’ Jackson wrote in dissent… She said the mayor’s ‘absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s court could love.’… The law as written ‘poses no genuine threat to common gift giving, she said, but it ‘clearly covers the kind of corrupt (albeit perhaps non-quid pro quo) payment [the mayor] solicited after steering the city contracts to the dealership.’”

The ruling expands the devolving perception of government integrity almost everywhere, but particularly against this Court. And given President Biden’s abysmal debate performance on June 27th, will enough voters stay away from the polls in November to elect not only Donald Trump but enough down-ballot Democrats such that Trump would be able to appoint (and easily get confirmation) of very young MAGA-biased Supreme Court justices to pollute that body for decades to come? Assuming democracy survives at all?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are living in a time where military grade assault weapons are everywhere, where lying for political or economic gain have been normalized and legitimized, where a white Christian minority is setting the rules for everyone and where reality has been replaced by conspiracy theories promulgated from fear and anger.