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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 May 2019
Corruption of public officials is the silent killer of the U.S. economy, and we should reflect carefully on how it might be reined in. That’s the thought behind campaign finance laws. But broad grants of discretion to authorities, which might work in New Zealand, are more likely to be abused in low-trust America, and campaign finance laws are one example of this. First Amendment free speech rights, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, represent its reflection on the American character and the possibility of abuse when Congress tries to restrict political speech. So conservatives are apt to think, and not entirely without reason.
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2 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. ___ (2014).
3 Tesco Supermarkets Ltd. v. Nattrass, [1972] A.C. 153.
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9 18 U.S.C. §§ 201(b)(2), 201(a)(3).
10 Howard v. United States, 345 F.2d 126, 128 (1st Cir., 1965), f’lld. in United States v. McDonnell, __ F.3d __ (4th Cir., 2015).
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23 Apart from the federal bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 201(b)(2), 201(a)(3), several other federal criminal offenses piggyback on the bribery prohibition. The Supreme Court has held that the honest services wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346.16, which requires the government to prove that the defendant sought to carry out a fraudulent scheme to defraud a person of his intangible right to honest services, creates an antibribery offense. Skilling v. United States, 130 S. Ct. 2896, 2933 (2010). A second statute, the Hobbs Act, makes it criminal to commit extortion by obtaining property “under color of official right,” 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(2), which again the Supreme Court has found comes down to taking a bribe. Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255, 260, 268 (1992).
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26 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(1)(A), 5 U.S.C.S. § 7353.
27 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
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31 “Lobbying Law in the Spotlight: Challenges and Proposed Improvements—Report of the Task Force on Federal Lobbying Laws,” American Bar Association Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, January 3, 2011.