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Page Number: 12.0

8 

SNYDER v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

gratuities provision for federal officials, which contains no 
express mens rea requirements and simply makes it a crime 
for federal officials to accept a payment “for or because of 
any official act.”3 

Therefore,  the  dividing  line  between  §201(b)’s  bribery 
provision and §201(c)’s gratuities provision is that bribery 
requires that the official have a corrupt state of mind and
accept  (or  agree  to  accept)  the  payment  intending  to  be 
influenced  in  the  official  act.  See  United  States  v.  Sun-
Diamond  Growers  of  Cal.,  526  U. S.  398,  404–405  (1999).
Section 666 shares the defining characteristics of §201(b)’s
bribery provision: the corrupt state of mind and the intent 
to  be  influenced  in  the  official  act.  The  statutory  text 
therefore  strongly  suggests  that  §666—like  §201(b)—is  a 
bribery statute, not a gratuities statute.

Second  is  the  statutory  history,  which  reinforces  that 
textual analysis.  In 1984, when first enacting §666 for state 
and  local  officials,  Congress  borrowed  language  from  the
gratuities  statute  for  federal  officials,  §201(c).    See  18 
U. S. C.  §666(b)  (1982  ed.,  Supp.  II).    But  just  two  years
later,  in  1986,  Congress  overhauled  §666,  eliminated  the
gratuities  language,  and  instead  enacted  the  current
language  that  resembles  the  bribery  provision  for  federal 
officials, §201(b).  Perhaps Congress in 1986 concluded that 
federally  criminalizing  state  and  local  gratuities  would 
significantly intrude on federalism.  Whatever the impetus,
we know that Congress decided in 1986 to change the law 
and to model §666 on §201(b), the bribery statute, and not 
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3 Section 201(c)(1)(B) provides: 

“Whoever otherwise than as provided by law for the proper discharge
of official duty . . . being a public official, former public official, or person
selected to be a public official, otherwise than as provided by law for the 
proper discharge of official duty, directly or indirectly demands, seeks, 
receives,  accepts,  or  agrees  to  receive  or  accept  anything  of  value 
personally for or because of any official act performed or to be performed
by such official or person . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
for not more than two years, or both.”