The Supreme Court on Wednesday 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.
At this point, it’s an unsolvable problem.
The only way to begin preventing lobbying interests from overtaking voter interests would be to have anti-lobbying politicians, and enough of them to actually get something done without being blocked by both the Democrats and Republicans. That would only happen after multiple decades of anti-lobbying presidents being elected, and that itself will never happen because the RNC and DNC are both paid off by corporate interests, so they’ll never nominate a candidate that goes against their masters. And, on top of that, it’s highly unlikely that a third-party candidate will ever succeed when they’re both illigitimized by the media and put in an extreme disadvantage by the electoral college.