This Supreme Court has redefined the meaning of corruption

Recent Supreme Court decisions have made it so that bribing a politician must be cartoonishly blatant to qualify as corruption. DigitalVision Vectors via Getty by Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Stetson University The U.S. Supreme Court is deregulating corruption, with arguably grim consequences for American democracy. The latest example of this troubling trend was the case known as Snyder v. United States. At first glance, this may have seemed like a narrow, wonky case about whether a part of the U.S. criminal code that outlaws bribery also covers “gratuities.” Yet the court’s decision, issued on June 26, 2024, kneecaps federal prosecutors’ power to go after corrupt government officials. Snyder follows a pattern of the current Supreme Court I’ve documented in three books. Since John Roberts became its chief justice in 2006, the court has made prosecuting corruption, especially at the state and local level, nearly impossible for federal prosecutors. Gift, gratuity or bribe? The Snyder case centered on a former mayor of Portage, Indiana, who was charged with violating federal anti-corruption law while he was mayor. He accepted US$13,000 from a truck company in 2014 after the city had signed a $1.1 million contract to buy trash trucks. Mayor James Snyder showed up...