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121 Penn St. L. Rev. 1013 (2016-2017)
A Way Forward for Congress on Bribery after McDonnell

handle is hein.journals/dlr121 and id is 1057 raw text is: A Way Forward for Congress on Bribery After McDonnell Jennifer Ahearn* ABSTRACT When the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the bribery conviction of Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell, it did so on statutory grounds, but its opinion included ominous language about constitutional concerns the Court had with a broader interpretation of the statute. If Congress wants to amend the bribery statute so that the McDonnell decision does not result in an excessively narrow interpretation of the statute in the future, it would be wise to do so bearing in mind the constitutional issues the McDonnell court raised. This article proposes that Congress could account for these concerns by taking, as a starting point, language in the existing federal financial conflicts of interest statute and related regulations promulgated by the Office of Government Ethics, which are appropriately broad and contain detail that would be helpful to public officials and others seeking to conform their conduct to the law. Table of Contents I. INTR ODUCTION ................................................................................... 1013 II. THE PROBLEM IDENTIFIED IN MCDONNELL......................................... 1014 III. CURRENT STATUS OF THE FEDERAL BRIBERY STATUTE ..................... 1017 IV. SOURCES OF A PROPOSED AMENDMENT ............................................. 1019 V. FORMS OF A POSSIBLE AMENDMENT .................................................. 1021 V I. C ON CLU SION ......................................................................................1024 I. INTRODUCTION On the last day of the 2015-16 term, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the bribery conviction of former Virginia * Policy Counsel, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The views expressed in this Article are mine alone. 1013

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