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Federal and state law distinguish between two kinds of payments to public officials — bribes and gratuities. According to the U.S. Supreme Court opinion, bribes are typically payments made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the public official with respect to that future official act. Gratuities are typically payments made to a public official after an official act as a reward or token of appreciation.
Federal, state and local governments have drawn different lines on which gratuities and gifts are acceptable and which are not.
Congress has established comprehensive prohibitions on both bribes and gratuities to federal officials. If a federal official accepts a bribe for an official act, federal bribery law provides for a 15-year maximum prison sentence. If they accept a prohibited gratuity, federal gratuities law sets a two-year maximum prison sentence.
In 1984, Congress passed and former President Ronald Reagan signed a now codified law that extended the gratuities prohibition to most state and local officials.
Congress reversed course after two years and amended the law to avoid its “possible application to acceptable commercial and business practices.” As amended, the Supreme Court asserted the text of the law closely resembles the bribery provision for federal officials and makes it a crime for most state and local officials to “corruptly” solicit, accept or agree to accept “anything of value” “intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with” any official business or transaction worth $5,000 or more.
That crime carries a 10-year maximum prison sentence, the high court noted.
This case involves James Snyder, who is the former mayor of Portage, Indiana. In 2013, while Snyder was mayor, Portage awarded two contracts to a local truck company, Great Lakes Peterbilt, and purchased five trash trucks from the company for about $1.1 million. In 2014, Peterbilt cut a $13,000 check to Snyder. The FBI and federal prosecutors suspected that the payment was a gratuity for the city’s trash truck contracts. But Snyder said that the payment was for his consulting services as a contractor for Peterbilt.
A federal jury ultimately convicted Snyder of accepting an illegal gratuity. The district court sentenced Snyder to one year and nine months in prison. On appeal, Snyder argued that the amended law criminalizes only bribes, not gratuities. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Snyder’s conviction.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the law forbids bribes to state and local officials but doesn’t make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.
It reversed the judgment of the lower courts and remanded the case.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined. Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined.
The dissenting justices asserted, “The Court’s reasoning elevates nonexistent federalism concerns over the plain text of this statute and is a quintessential example of the tail wagging the dog.”
“Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions,” Jackson wrote in the dissent. “Greed makes governments — at every level — less responsive, less efficient, and less trustworthy from the perspective of the communities they serve.” The justices went on to state that the majority’s “decision overrides the intent of Congress — and the policy preferences of the constituents that body represents — as unequivocally expressed by the plain text of the statute.”
In 2020, social media platforms announced that they would enforce content-moderation policies against users who post false or misleading content about the pandemic. The platforms also applied misinformation policies during the 2020 election season.
During that period, various federal officials regularly spoke with the platforms about COVID-19 and election-related misinformation. For example, White House officials publicly and privately called on the platforms to do more to address vaccine misinformation. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory that encouraged the platforms to take steps to prevent COVID-19 misinformation “from taking hold.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted the platforms to COVID-19 misinformation trends and flagged example posts. The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency communicated with the platforms about election-related misinformation in advance of the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterms.
Two states and five individual social media users sued dozens of executive branch officials and agencies, alleging that the government pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment. Following extensive discovery, the district court issued a preliminary injunction. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court held that both the state plaintiffs and the individual plaintiffs had Article III standing to seek injunctive relief.
On the merits, the court held that the government entities and officials, by “coerc[ing]” or “significantly encourag[ing]” the platforms’ moderation decisions, transformed those decisions into state action. The court then modified the district court’s injunction to state that the defendants shall not coerce or significantly encourage social media companies to suppress protected speech on their platforms.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant.
It reversed the lower court’s decision and remanded the case.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined. Justice Sameul Alito Jr. filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined.
The dissent noted: “This case involves what the District Court termed ‘a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign’ conducted by high-ranking federal officials against Americans who expressed certain disfavored views about COVID-19 on social media.”
“If the lower courts’ assessment of the voluminous record is correct, this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years,” Alito asserted in the dissent.