Law Commons^™

Corrupt And Unequal, Both, Lawrence Lessig

Fordham Law Review

Rick Hasen has presented the issue of money in politics as if we have to make a choice: it is either a problem of equality or it is a problem of corruption. Hasen’s long and influential career in this field has been a long and patient struggle to convince those on the corruption side of the fight (we liberals, at least, and, in an important sense, we egalitarians too) to resist the temptation to try to pass—by rendering equality arguments as corruption arguments, and to just come out of the closet. Hasen had famously declared that the corruption argument supporting …

Fighting Corruption In America And Abroad, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Fordham Law Review

The exchanges at the symposium and these Articles highlight the gap between public opinion and legal culture on the definition of corruption and the problems that flow from that gap. Teachout’s and Lessig’s legal argument that corruption can be institutional and banal roughly corresponds with the public’s moral intuition. Conversely, Lessig’s and Hasen’s intuitive moral reaction—that corruption is the evil of quid pro quo—maps onto the legal conclusion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC that corruption is narrowly defined as quid pro quo. Note the reversal of moral and legal positions: Teachout and Lessig’s legal …

Opening Remarks, John D. Feerick

Fordham Law Review

I salute those who have been involved in the planning of this program and will be moderating, serving on panels, and making presentations throughout the day. I am not quite sure what my present qualifications are to be the opening speaker in such an august gathering of outstanding academics, teachers, lawyers, good government leaders, public servants, and others of distinction. My work these years of my life is largely in the field of social justice and poverty. I am no stranger to the field of law reform, however.

Why Isn’T Congress More Corrupt?: A Preliminary Inquiry, Richard L. Hasen

Fordham Law Review

In the aftermath of the indictment of New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on corruption charges, law professor (and recent reformist gubernatorial candidate) Zephyr Teachout published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Legalized Bribery.” In it, she argued that campaign contributions are a “gateway drug” to bribes and that politicians are “pre- corrupted” by taking campaign contributions and doing favors for contributors. She wants campaign finance limits, public financing, and limits on outside income for legislators. Although Teachout used powerful rhetoric and suggested worthy reforms, I see her as offering an empirical hypothesis about the relationship between …

Love, Equality, And Corruption, Zephyr Teachout

Fordham Law Review

What is corruption? Unless one takes an absolute (and hard to defend) view of words’ meanings—there is a fixed meaning, it cannot differ—this question can mean different things. What has it meant in the past? What has it meant to judges? What social function does the word play? Does it have any meaning at all, or is it just another word for a different idea? Does the meaning it had historically have any coherence? Does the meaning it has now have any coherence? What do most people think it means? What do most scholars think, or most lawyers, …

Criminal Corruption: Why Broad Definitions Of Bribery Make Things Worse, Albert W. Alschuler

Fordham Law Review

Although the law of bribery may look profoundly underinclusive, the push to expand it usually should be resisted. This Article traces the history of two competing concepts of bribery—the “intent to influence” concept (a concept initially applied only to gifts given to judges) and the “illegal contract” concept. It argues that, when applied to officials other than unelected judges, “intent to influence” is now an untenable standard. This standard cannot be taken literally. This Article defends the Supreme Court’s refusal to treat campaign contributions as bribes in the absence of an “explicit” quid pro quo and its refusal to read …

Cross-Border Corruption Enforcement: A Case For Measured Coordination Among Multiple Enforcement Authorities, Jay Holtmeier

Fordham Law Review

The steady increase in cooperation and information sharing among governments is a trend commonly noted in discussions of current anticorruption enforcement. There is no shortage of evidence to support this observation. In 2013 and 2014 alone, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recognized the cooperation and assistance of foreign law enforcement authorities in at least twenty-three actions brought under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA or “the Act”). U.S. enforcement authorities—once the world’s primary anticorruption enforcers—increasingly can and do rely on the help of their international counterparts and are pursuing more investigations that run …

The Uncomfortable Truths And Double Standards Of Bribery Enforcement, Mike Koehler

Fordham Law Review

In recent years, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement has become a top priority for the U.S. government, and government enforcement officials have stated that “we in the United States are in a unique position to spread the gospel of anti-corruption” and that FCPA enforcement ensures not only that the United States “is on the right side of history, but also that it has a hand in advancing that history.”

However, the FCPA is not the only statute in the federal criminal code concerning bribery. Rather, the FCPA was modeled in large part after the U.S. domestic bribery statute, and …

The “Demand Side” Of Transnational Bribery And Corruption: Why Leveling The Playing Field On The Supply Side Isn’T Enough, Lucinda A. Low, Sarah R. Lamoree, John London

Fordham Law Review

The domestic and international legal framework for combating bribery and corruption (“ABC laws”), including both private and public corrupt practices that are transnational (cross border) in character, has dramatically expanded over the last twenty years. Despite these developments, major gaps remain. This Article examines one of the largest systemic gaps: the absence of effective tools to control the demand side of transnational bribery and corruption—the corrupt solicitation of a benefit—especially when it involves a public official.

Keynote Address, Preet Bharara

Fordham Law Review

Thank you, professor, for that introduction. It was quite the introduction. It is true my brother started a very successful online diaper company. It was mentioned that we do not have enough followers on our Twitter feed. My brother is a much more clever member of the family. My recollection is that when he started that company, he had a slogan—he and some folks came up with this slogan for the diaper company—which was—and it was emblazoned on a t-shirt which was one of the few perks of being related to somebody who started a company, and I from time …

Time For An Update: A New Framework For Evaluating Chapter 9 Bankruptcies, Michael J. Deitch

Fordham Law Review

Municipal bankruptcies have been making national news since the “Great Recession.” Municipalities like Stockton, Vallejo, and Jefferson County gained notoriety for the record scale of their bankruptcy filings, only to be surpassed by Detroit shortly thereafter as the largest and most populous municipal bankruptcy filing. Historically, municipal bankruptcy occurred infrequently, leaving the nuances of many critical issues, including insolvency, asset utilization, and good faith, unexplored in case law. For example, how should a bankruptcy court analyze Detroit’s cityowned art museum that houses billions of dollars of art when bondholders, pensioners, and other unsecured creditors have unpaid claims? And how should …

Local Judges And Local Government, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

This interview-based empirical study explores how local judges view themselves and their crosscutting roles in local and state government. In particular, it considers local judges’ relationships with the public that elects them, the executive and legislative branches of their localities, and the larger statewide judicial bureaucracy of which they are a very large but somewhat disconnected part. The Article reports on the results of interviews with local judges at the county, town, and village levels — and suggests some broader lessons for scholars, officials, and policymakers interested and active in local government law and politics. Those who study local government …

Federal Sentencing In The States: Some Thoughts On Federal Grants And State Imprisonment, John F. Pfaff

Faculty Scholarship

As the movement to reduce the outsized scale of US incarceration rates gains momentum, there has been increased attention on what federal sentencing reform can accomplish. Since nearly 90% of prisoners are held in state, not federal, institutions, an important aspect of federal reform should be trying to alter how the states behave. Criminal justice, however, is a distinctly state and local job over which the federal government has next to no direct control. In this paper, I examine one way in which the federal government may be driving up state incarceration rates, and thus one way it can try …