Policy

POLICY

Public Corruption: Prosecution Improvements Act

Congress, Corruption, Ethics, Public Corruption

A Proposed Fix

Fortunately, legislation responding to these decisions has been proposed. The Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act (S. 49 / H.R. 2822) provides fixes to the Sun-Diamond and Valdes cases and adds other crucial enhancements to key aspects of federal criminal law.

In response to Sun Diamond, the bill makes clear that benefits to public officials designed to curry favor for non-specified future acts or to build a reservoir of goodwill are prohibited by clarifying that public officials may not accept anything of value given to them because of their official position.

To respond to Valdes, the bill broadens the definition of "official act" to include "every action that is within the range of official duty," and makes clear that a corrupt payment, or a series of payments, can be made to influence more than one official act.