Carte Blanche: Federal Prosecution of State and Local Officials after Sabri
53 Pages Posted: 5 Oct 2004
Abstract
Federal prosecutions of state and local officials for political corruption are a significant feature of the American political landscape. However, they raise serious federalism questions, especially the potential impact on state autonomy and sovereignty. Thus, these prosecutions would seem to run counter to the Supreme Court's "New Federalism." The Court has never explored the issue in depth. Last term it handed down a decision highly favorable to the federal role in the case of Sabri v. United States. This paper examines Sabri, and questions the rationale that the prosecution in that case was an example of justifiable protection of federal funds. The article offers an alternative perspective, namely, that the Court was anxious to further the anti-corruption imperative demonstrated in McConnell (the Campaign Finance Reform case). The article concludes with possible alternative rationales for a strong federal role in overseeing state and local governments and for a general anti-corruption statute.
Keywords: political corruption, Section 666, mail fraud, Hobbs Act, federalism
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Assessing Partisan Bias in Federal Public Corruption Prosecutions
-
Political and Judicial Checks on Corruption: Evidence from American State Governments
By James E. Alt and David Dreyer Lassen
-
By Filipe R. Campante and Quoc-anh Do
-
By Filipe R. Campante and Quoc-anh Do
-
Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from US States
By Filipe R. Campante and Quoc-anh Do
-
Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from Us States
By Filipe R. Campante and Quoc-anh Do
-
Enforcement and Public Corruption: Evidence from US States
By James E. Alt and David Dreyer Lassen
-
Reevaluating Two Measures of Inter-Party Competition in the American States
By Gregory Shufeldt and Patrick Flavin
-
Isolated Capital Cities and Misgovernance: Theory and Evidence
By Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-anh Do, ...