The high court’s 6-3 opinion along ideological lines found the law criminalizes bribes given before an official act, not rewards handed out after.
Eg: it’s ok to give Supreme Court Justices money after they rule in your favor because it’s normal and ok to regularly hand them amounts much larger than their salary. The Democrats on the court were the dissenters.
The dumbest part about this ruling is it treats every bribe as unrelated to every other bribe. The majority ignored the basic trait of every human with a prefrontal cortex, that we judge future planning by past experience.
So even ignoring the “first bribe is free” effect of the decision, what will happen in effect is that legislators and politicians will pass laws they think will gain bribes, be paid by interests that benefit after the fact, and after that without a single word, have an understanding that such back-dated bribes can continue indefinitely. Regular, consistent bribery is legal and easy, under this ruling.
This is it, exactly. They are going to start voting in a way that generates themselves the most future gifts, actual justice be damned.
Who do you think is going to be able to afford future gifts? Because it sure as hell isn’t going to be the little guy.