WASHINGTON -- In striking down long-standing campaign contribution limits last week, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the right to donate to as many candidates as you like is protected by the First Amendment and that the government has an interest only in preventing direct quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. That was great news for members of Congress, and not just because they're likely to receive more campaign contributions.
Even when someone alleges quid pro quo corruption -- basically outright bribery -- against them, federally elected politicians are very unlikely to be prosecuted thanks to another provision of the Constitution: the speech or debate clause.
That clause states that any "speech or debate" in the House or Senate by a member of Congress "shall not be questioned in any other place." It is part of the same section that bars arresting members of Congress at or on their way to and from the Capitol, which is intended to stop the executive from interfering with the legislative process. In 1971, Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) relied on the speech or debate clause for protection when he entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record.
But the same clause also makes it nearly impossible for law enforcement investigators to obtain access to congressional materials that could implicate a corrupt congressman or senator. And it essentially prevents prosecutors from introducing into evidence anything that a member of Congress did as part of his or her official duties. That means laws, bills and floor speeches cannot prove corruption.
On March 26, federal law enforcement swept into three states to arrest and indict state and local politicians targeted in undercover bribery investigations. The FBI arrested three Democratic lawmakers: California state Sen. Leland Yee; Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Patrick Cannon; and New York state Assemblyman William Scarborough.
These major investigations of state-level elected officials stand in stark contrast to the lack of action against U.S. senators and representatives. While quid pro quo corruption among federal officeholders may not be as extensive as it is in statehouses, given how much easier it is for members of Congress to raise money, the lack of prosecutions for congressional bribery is almost certainly not because it doesn't exist.
"The more that the [Supreme] Court restricts the definition of corruption in the campaign finance context, the less there's an ability to regulate this conduct at all," said Rick Hasen, a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, and an expert on campaign finance law. "A lot of misconduct is unregulatable."
Beyond making it more difficult to prosecute members of Congress....Continued....
Read it at the Huffington Post
Photo courtesy of Rowan Esquer
