The SCOTUS Five: making the world safe for corruption?
Three of the court's conservatives, Scalia (left) Chief Justice Roberts (center) and Alito (right)
Apparently, public corruption is NOT like pornography. Tony Scalia doesn’t know it when he sees it. And that’s not just because Supreme Court justices live sheltered, sexless lives (had a Coke lately, Clarence…?) No, it’s because like corporations, including multinationals with substantial foreign ownership, investing unlimited sums in American elections, politicians should be allowed to trade their votes for money from time to time. From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Some of South Florida’s public officials who were swept up in recent public corruption investigations hope the U.S. Supreme Court will make a favorite prosecution tool disappear when the justices rule on a controversial law aimed at dishonest politicians.
Prosecutors say the 20-year-old federal law in question, honest services fraud, is a valuable anti-corruption measure.
In recent years it has been used to send three former Palm Beach County commissioners to prison. It’s also being used to prosecute suspended Broward School Board member Beverly Gallagher and former Miramar City Commissioner Fitzroy Salesman.
Defense attorneys say — and at least a few of the nine high court justices agree — that the law is unconstitutional because it’s too vague and doesn’t warn public officials of exactly what could land them behind bars.
The court is expected to rule in the next few months on three cases from around the nation challenging the law.
Scalia has already telegraphed his opposition to the law, saying it’s so broad, “it could be used to prosecute a mayor who dropped his name to get a restaurant table without a reservation.” So count Scalia’s hand puppet Clarence in the “strike it down” camp, too. And since the law aims at protecting the mere electorate from the politically powerful, let’s assume that Alito and Roberts will vote to strike as well. So that means that, unfortunately, we’re back down to the unpredictable (and usually not in a good way) Justice Kennedy. Here we go…
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