Recently, the Supreme Court in the Snyder vs. United States case held that Federal anti-corruption laws prohibit bribes to state and local officials for actions they take but it was not a crime for these officials to accept “gratuities” they receive after the fact for their past acts. On June 26th the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision reversed the judgment of the U.
S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The decision, written by Justice Kavanaugh, concerned a case in which the mayor of Portage, a city in northwest Indiana with a population of 38,000, was found guilty of accepting a $13,000 check from a truck company for supposed consulting services he rendered to the company when it was awarded contracts worth $1.
1 million from the city for five new garbage trucks. In a very narrow reading of the relevant statute, a majority of the justices, consistent with their concerns about overregulation and creeping federalism, opted to make a bizarre distinction between local and state governmental officials accepting a bribe vs. gratuity.
If one simply looks at what the statute says, it clearly covers local officials who corruptly accept all rewards, regardless of when they received it, in connection with official business. Let’s review what went down with regard to former Mayor James Snyder in Portage, Indiana. Justice Jackson wrote the following in her dissenting opinion.
“As mayor, Snyder and his appointees sat on the Portage Board of Works and Public Safety, the entity .