Wednesday, December 10, 2008

When Does Horse-Trading Become Bribery

Eugene Volokh raises that issue in connectionwith Gov. Blago...'s arrest yesterday:

...my sense is that political deals of the "I appoint your political ally to X and you appoint me to Y" variety are pretty commonplace, though perhaps done with more subtlety than seemed to be contemplated here. Should these deals indeed be treated as criminal bribery? Have they generally been so treated?
After all, another Illinois man made appointments to his cabinet as part of horse-trades (notably Simon Cameron, to Secretary of War in 1861).

Volokh doesn't refer to Gov. Siegelman's conviction on a similar count, covered in a Post story today. One person quoted in the story notes that Blagojevich was looking for personal gain, at least in part, which wasn't true for Siegelman.

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