Opinion ID: 28156
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Integrity of State and Local Officials

Text: with Authority over Federal Funds A second federal interest at stake here is the integrity vel non of federal programs and funds, regardless of the quantum or budget percentage of funds at issue. A corrupt state or city official who has real responsibility for, or often participates in, the allocation of federal funds is a “threat to the integrity”154 of those funds, even if they are not actually or directly infected by his corruption. Congress may legitimately view as necessary and proper the imposition of federal criminal liability for bribery, so as to ensure the honesty of state and local officials who have federal funds in their purview or federal programs under their authority. Judge Smith advances two explicit arguments against such liability (neither of which, with respect, I find persuasive) and one implicit argument that is defeated by the text of the statute and the facts of this case. The implicit contention is that bribery of Lipscomb alone, apart from any of his fourteen council 154 Salinas, 522 U.S. at 61. 60 colleagues, cannot create a sufficient federal interest or nexus, because Lipscomb cannot act for the Council. This argument might also be grounded in the fact that, alone, one legislator does not administer program funds. The text of § 666 disposes of this argument, as a statutory matter, because Congress clearly sought to apply § 666 to legislative-branch officials.155 As a constitutional matter, there is little or no basis for holding that federal jurisdiction over bribery of Council members depends on whether the briber can command a majority. One Council member’s vote, after all, can tip the balance on a close question; and, as Lipscomb’s conduct here demonstrates, a member has a number of arrows in his parliamentary quiver besides the final vote. Judge Smith also speculates that the State of Texas would have prosecuted Lipscomb had it known of the evidence against him. This is not a constitutional argument; it merely begs the constitutional question regarding the limits of the spending power.156 And, as 155 Lipscomb is an “agent” under the statute because he is an “officer” of Dallas. 18 U.S.C. § 666(d)(1) (2000). Even if he were merely an agent of a “subdivision of the [ ] legislative... branch of government,” the statute’s text would still cover him. 18 U.S.C. § 666(d)(2) (2000). 156 See United States v. Bailey, 990 F.2d 119, 126 (4th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted): We find no merit to this claim.... [T]he Tenth Amendment does not prohibit the federal government from enforcing its laws, even when there are state laws addressing the same criminal act. . . . Although South Carolina could have brought state criminal charges against Bailey based upon the same facts, this does not prevent the United States from 61 either a positive or a normative statement —— that the federal government either does or should leave such prosecutions to the states —— it fails. There are at least three reasons why federal rather than state bribery prosecutions might be necessary and proper in cases like Lipscomb’s. First, the federal government might have a greater incentive to prosecute than does the state government, either because the offense conduct directly or potentially affects federal funds or because the federal government provides more money to the locality than does the state government.157 The latter proposition is true in this case: In terms of dollars provided to Dallas, the federal government has a stake in the city’s fiscal integrity that is between fifteen and twenty times greater than the state’s stake.158 Second, federal officials might be less corruptible than state enforcing its criminal statutes. 157 Both reasons were part of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s thinking in recommending that the Senate enact § 666. See S. REP. NO. 98-225 at 369, reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3510: In many cases, such prosecution is impossible because title has passed to the recipient before the property is stolen, or the funds are so commingled that the Federal character of the funds cannot be shown. This situation gives rise to a serious gap in the law, since even though title to the monies may have passed, the Federal Government clearly retains a strong interest in assuring the integrity of such program funds. Indeed, a recurring problem in this area (as well as in the related area of bribery of the administrators of such funds) has been that State and local prosecutors are often unwilling to commit their limited resources to pursue such thefts, deeming the United States the principal party aggrieved. 158 See Part I.B., supra (discussing jurisdictional facts). 62 and local officials,159 and an informant with evidence of misconduct by a state or local official might feel safer in taking his information to federal authorities; indeed, he could even prefer that it not be shared with state or local authorities. Third, federal prosecutors are less likely to be linked to state and local politicians and are generally more independent of local political forces that might try to protect high officials from aggressive state enforcement. Judge Smith’s second contention against high-official liability is a law-and-economics argument that, in my opinion, does not hold water and affords courts little basis, if any, on which to pronounce a statute unconstitutional, whether facially or as applied. As I understand his argument, it is that if courts permit the United States as well as states to prosecute high local officials for bribery involving local funds and programs, corrupt officials will change their behavior and, on the margin, take more bribes directly related to federal funds and programs than they otherwise would.160 With respect, I perceive at least three flaws 159 See RICHARD A. POSNER, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE LAW 698 (5th ed. 1998) (emphasis added): Some federal criminal jurisdiction can be explained by reference to the point...that monopolies of political power are more easily achieved at the state than at the federal level. Federal criminal prosecutions of corrupt local government officials exploit the relative incorruptibility of federal officials —— stemming from the greater costs of corrupting a federal agency... —— in order to reduce corruption at the local level. 160 See infra at ___. 63 of logic in this argument. First, social science has not yet proven that the rationalactor model adequately explains the real-world behavior of whitecollar criminals: As behavioral law and economics warns us, inadequate information, biases, and heuristics often prevent individuals from acting rationally. For example, unless a local official is well integrated into a culture of white-collar criminality (which would itself suggest that federal prosecution may be necessary), he will lack even anecdotal data on the probability that either the state or the federal government will detect and prosecute bribery. (Anecdotal data would, of course, be the only data available.) Therefore, an official considering whether to take a bribe would not be likely to calculate the odds of detection or prosecution in the dispassionately mathematical way that the rational-actor model might suggest. Furthermore, standard law-and-economics analysis actually justifies federal criminal jurisdiction on the basis of interstate externalities, an argument eminently applicable here.161 If bribery in Dallas threatens federally-provided funds, that corruption threatens the federal Treasury, which is funded by taxes collected not just from Texas but from all across the Nation. Lastly and most importantly, even if Judge Smith’s law-and- economics objection to federal jurisdiction here were an accurate 161 See POSNER, supra note 120, at 697. 64 predictor, it has little force. The most that his prediction might prove is that Congress has deluded itself into passing a law that may be self-defeating, because it increases the vulnerability of federal funds to corruption and thus disregards economic facts. “But a law can be both economic folly and constitutional.”162 A means-ends tradeoff, weighing costs against benefits, is precisely the sort of political judgment that members of Congress are entitled —— and better equipped than judges —— to make, and that courts should generally defer to. As judges, we do not experience the perils attendant on taxing one’s own constituents, do not enjoy the political significance of bringing home the fiscal bacon, and do not share the frustration of seeing hard-won federal dollars bleed off through the hands of corrupt local officials. Lacking the power to tax and spend, federal judges should defer to a plausible risk-reward construct that Congress has enacted to protect the federal fisc.