AMERICA’S LAWS ON POLITICAL DONATIONS NEED SERIOUS CHANGES

…The former Virginia governor recently found guilty on 11 counts.

 

The guilty decision in the Bob McDonnell case makes it very clear that the political donation laws are truly outdated.

The guilty verdict in the trial of former Virginia governor and former Republican rising star, Robert (Bob) McDonnell, highlights an issue that few in the news have made aware to the public. 

The final guilty verdict could and should scare the bejesus out of politicians that think that they could do just fine in a trial by a jury of their peers.  Juries today, or Americans in general, are very upset with most American politicians.  Due to partisan organizations such as FOX NEWS, and with news in general being available immediately on a 24/7 basis, all the lies or misstatements are also available 24/7, all over the air waves.  What and who to believe is a very big issue for all Americans these days.

First, all politicians need to be aware that the way the Virginia governor went down, the federal prosecutors had decided to go after the governor and his wife, not on bribery, but on the easier-to-prove crimes of fraud and extortion.  The extortion counts were based on a statute that prohibits obtaining any property “under color of official right.” Both offenses of doing so are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

 

But to prove fraud or political extortion, a prosecutor must only show that someone like McDonnell accepted a particular donation on the basis that he would perform official acts in return. Even if those official acts were never performed, the official would still be guilty of breaking the law, just by accepting the donation or gift.  This agreement to trade gifts for official acts is all that separates “politics as usual” from a felony corruption charge.

In order to avoid prison, a good policy for officials would obviously be to discourage large donations.  They should also avoid any decisions that would benefit any major donors and they should personally disengage from all political contributors.  Unfortunately, so far, today very few politicians, that are probably already very guilty, ever follow those suggestions.  But on the other hand, those that break the laws are seldom ever pursued for prosecution.  The way the general American public is feeling today, (such as those on McDonnell’s jury), that issue of  pursuing prosecution in the future could be making a 180° turn,

The Supreme Court has insisted that there is a clear distinction between the felony offenses that upended McDonnell, and our tried-and-true system of allowing private entities and individuals to shower government officials with campaign contributions and gifts. That distinction only comes down to the contents of the official prosecutor’s mind. As I said, the agreement to trade gifts for official acts is all that separates politics as usual from a felony corruption charge.  It truly is totally up the what the prosecutor wants to pursue.

What should be concerning today’s American politician is that America’s laws and rules on the subject are so loose that, depending on the prosecutor, whether a donation or gift would qualify as being fraud or extortion, the corruption agreement need not even be documented. That fact alone should send chills down the spines of public officials across the country. 

Admittedly, scaring all politicians might not be such a bad idea..

The real problem is that we live in a democracy, and democracies do not do well when there are no strict rules for deciding whether or not a political donation law has been broken.  How much credibility can be given to a prosecution, if one prosecutor can call it a serious fraud, but another prosecutor can say it’s just “business as usual”?

This situation isn’t good for any democracy, and it is especially bad today since the Citizens-United case that now allows little transparency for those who are allowed to give millions of dollars to political campaigns.

The United States needs to either change and strengthen our campaign finance laws or, at least finally and legally acknowledge that our public corruption laws are merely “suggestions” for how we should be behaving.

Today our political system’s rules for any given federal, state or local official is just to give them a wink and a nod.  They are all just a motivated prosecutor’s arms lengths away from being involved in a federal prosecution.

This issue seriously needs to change.

Copyright G.Ater  2014