Eric Muller
posed this question on his blog (http://www.isthatlegal.org); I wonder what
people think about it.
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 3:32 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Puzzling cert grant
>
>
> I am at a loss to understand the Sabri case, on which the Court yesterday
> granted cert.
> --Eric
>
>
> http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2003_10_12_isthatlegal_archive.html#1066
> 24604536734652
>
> The Supreme Court yesterday granted certiorari in a case out of the Eighth
> Circuit involving a federal bribery statute. The law in question makes it
> illegal for a state employee of an agency that gets more than $10,000 in
> federal funding to accept a bribe in an amount greater than $5,000.
>
> The case is apparently getting litigated as a Spending Clause issue, so
> the issue before the Court is whether the law exceeds the Congress's
> Spending Clause powers in that it doesn't require that the $5,000 bribe
> relate in any way to the $10,000 in federal funding.
>
> I am at a loss. Congress would unquestionably have the power, under the
> Commerce Clause, to make it illegal to pay a money bribe in an amount
> greater than $5,000 to anyone. That would just be a prohibition of a money
> transaction--something that would be OK even under the new rules of the
> federalism game that the Court has been giving us. (Think of it this way:
> wouldn't Congress have the power to pass a law that made it illegal to sell
> more than $5,000 worth of cocaine? More than $5,000 worth of tobacco? I'm
> not asking whether it would be wise for Congress to pass such a law--just
> whether it would have the power to do so.)
>
> So if it has that power, then why should we care that it has chosen to
> restrict the scope of the statute to situations where the victim agency
> receives more than $10,000 in federal funding?
>
> The buzz is (scroll down to Greenhouse's description of this case) that
> this might be the case where the federalism revolution reaches the Spending
> Clause. But I don't see how, or why.
>
>
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 3:32 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Puzzling cert grant
>
>
> I am at a loss to understand the Sabri case, on which the Court yesterday
> granted cert.
> --Eric
>
>
> http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2003_10_12_isthatlegal_archive.html#1066
> 24604536734652
>
> The Supreme Court yesterday granted certiorari in a case out of the Eighth
> Circuit involving a federal bribery statute. The law in question makes it
> illegal for a state employee of an agency that gets more than $10,000 in
> federal funding to accept a bribe in an amount greater than $5,000.
>
> The case is apparently getting litigated as a Spending Clause issue, so
> the issue before the Court is whether the law exceeds the Congress's
> Spending Clause powers in that it doesn't require that the $5,000 bribe
> relate in any way to the $10,000 in federal funding.
>
> I am at a loss. Congress would unquestionably have the power, under the
> Commerce Clause, to make it illegal to pay a money bribe in an amount
> greater than $5,000 to anyone. That would just be a prohibition of a money
> transaction--something that would be OK even under the new rules of the
> federalism game that the Court has been giving us. (Think of it this way:
> wouldn't Congress have the power to pass a law that made it illegal to sell
> more than $5,000 worth of cocaine? More than $5,000 worth of tobacco? I'm
> not asking whether it would be wise for Congress to pass such a law--just
> whether it would have the power to do so.)
>
> So if it has that power, then why should we care that it has chosen to
> restrict the scope of the statute to situations where the victim agency
> receives more than $10,000 in federal funding?
>
> The buzz is (scroll down to Greenhouse's description of this case) that
> this might be the case where the federalism revolution reaches the Spending
> Clause. But I don't see how, or why.
>
>
