Honest Services Research Articles

Legal Protection of Banking Customers in the Perspective of Law 8 of 1999

The use of electronic technology has become prevalent in banking services, offering convenience to customers through internet transaction services. However, this reliance on technology has also exposed vulnerabilities, leading to violations and crimes that result in significant losses for individuals and even the state. Hacker techniques and breaches of bank financial systems have become unavoidable risks. Banks play a crucial role in the financial system, overseeing business transactions and economic activities. Individuals and businesses choose banks as their preferred institutions for depositing funds, conducting transactions, and obtaining capital. Given the importance of banks, legal protection for customers is essential. This research adopts a normative approach, utilizing both statutory and conceptual methods. Secondary data serves as the primary source, and qualitative descriptive analysis is employed. Conclusions are drawn deductively, specifically regarding the topic of Legal Protection of Banking Customers in relation to Law Number 8 of 1999. The findings emphasize the urgency of legal protection for bank customers under the Consumer Protection Law. This law ensures legal certainty for customers by obligating banks to provide correct and honest services, as well as transparent and accurate information about service conditions and guarantees. Banks should collaborate with consumer institutions or other bodies to formulate clauses that meet the needs of all parties without compromising legal certainty. Agreement on the interpretation of relevant clauses is also crucial.

Заполнить пробелы: оценка состояния федерального антикоррупционного законодательства после дела Kelly v. United States

Objective: to reveal the gaps and contradictions in the US federal anti-corruption law, to elaborate the means of solving the contradictions and bridging the gaps.Methods: dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena using the general scientific (analysis, synthesis, induction)and specific scientific (formal-legal, systemic, comparative-legal, sociological) research methods.Results: Political corruption in the United States has become more and more prevalent in recent years. These days it seems difficult to turn on the news without hearing accusations of a public official caught in a scandal. Despite the frequency of the corrupt acts, however, the federal government remains largely unable to hold state actors accountable. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently overturned federal convictions of state officials charged with committing corrupt acts. The issue in these cases is not the lack of corruption or proof of the acts but rather, the lack of laws that adequately criminalize the corrupt conduct. As a result, the same corrupt actions being publicly denounced in the news are being excused in the justice system. This paper examines the Court's recent corruption cases and analyzes the rationales behind them, including Kelly v. United States, the most recent case in the federal corruption saga.Scientific novelty: the author concludes that in Kelly V. United States the Court is sending a clear message to the US Congress: amend the corruption laws to properly cover the conduct. In this regard, the author proposes an amended version of the current law that takes into account the analysis of Kelly and other federal corruption cases. It is proposed to define "honest services" in the federal law, which would provide federal prosecutors a viable statute to combat corruption.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activities when considering the issues related to prevention and control of law breaches.

THE INFLUENCE OF CUSTOMER EDUCATION AND THEIR PROTECTION IN BANKING SERVICES

Purpose: The prime objective of the study is to analyse financial literacy among consumers and also examine the impact of financial literacy on consumer protection. Design/Research Methodology/approach: A random sample of 212 customers was chosen as the respondents for the study. A self-administered questionnaire was used for the collection of primary data and distributed to the random samples and has been tested with standard deviation and one sample t-test. Findings: This study has found that most of the respondents are unaware of the grievance redressal system exists for banking customers. Research Implications: Financial Institutions are regulated to provide better products and services rather than taking advantage of financially illiterate consumers. By giving clear and specific information to its customers and providing adequate mechanisms to resolve the disputes of customers, financial institutions can deliver fair and honest services and protect the consumer interest Scope for future work / Research limitations: This contribution mainly focused to analyse the financial literacy among consumers and also examine the impact of financial literacy on consumer protection. but it has not studied any other variables that may have impact on consumer protection in banking sector. Further this contribution surveyed 212 respondents from a particular city, hence the result may or may not be applicable to the other cities or states in India. Originality/value: A literature review found that there are various studies on financial literacy and its impact on consumer protection. The paper describes how Socio demographic factors of the respondents are are related to the financial literacy and consumer protection. Key Words: Consumer Protection, Consumer unawareness, financial illiteracy, Paper type: Research paper

Role of On-Time & Honest Customer Services in the Success of Small Construction Companies in Saudi Arabia

Background:The construction companies need to maintain their success levels to survive in the competitive business environment. The concept of just-in-time plays a significant role to reduce the costs and fulfill the needs of valued customers.Objective:The study aims to evaluate the role of honest customer services that are provided to the construction companies in Saudi Arabia.Methods:The study has used a case study approach to analyze the role of on-time and honest customer services in the success of small construction companies. Interviews were conducted to gather details and characteristics of the associated company. It mainly focused on the interactions and behaviors of participants, rather than calculations.Results:The results have provided a great understanding of the success of construction companies based on success factors. The organizational culture, delayed schedule, required quantity, and just-in-time purchasing are amongst the exceptional and highly effective factors on just-in-time delivery and customer experience. Moreover, organizing and planning were considered to be important factors contributing to company success.Conclusion:There is a strong association between the delivery of honest customer services and the success of construction companies in Saudi Arabia.

Is justice blind? Evidence from federal corruption convictions

Are federal prosecutors influenced by partisan political concerns? We examine that question by analyzing 40 years of federal corruption convictions at the state and federal district levels. Our key finding is that state-level federal corruption convictions fall by roughly 9% in years when a state’s governor belongs to the same party as the president who appointed local US Attorneys, a measure of state-federal political alignment. The result is robust to controls for the state political environment, election cycles, party tenure in the executive branch, public sector employment, federal aid to states, a state’s electoral importance, and the changes in Honest Services law, the statutory basis for many federal corruption cases. Our results are consistent with a significant level of partisan prosecutorial bias on the part of US Attorneys. In a placebo test, we find no evidence that state-federal political alignment affects the total number of federal criminal convictions. That finding provides support for the mechanism that we propose, namely the partisan exercise of prosecutorial discretion, rather than the partisan allocation of prosecutorial resources across federal districts.

Horse-Racing Fraud in Victorian Fiction

Horse-Racing Fraud in Victorian Fiction Nancy Henry (bio) In his account of English horse racing, A Mirror of the Turf (1892), Louis Henry Curzon writes: There is no other business, perhaps, which offers so many opportunities for successful fraud as horse-racing, and that for the best of reasons: the chicanery that is prevalent does not render those who practice it amendable to the criminal law, turf crimes being without the pale of legal action. (271)1 Curzon reflects that frauds in the late nineteenth century are more subtle and less violent than in the past, when a horse might be “ ‘nobbled’ or ‘got at’ by some person hired for the purpose, or it might be lamed by the farrier, or perhaps poisoned by a stable attendant” (272). In contrast, the “coups” of his own time are planned over months or years, as when bookmakers purchase horses in order to manipulate their odds across multiple races. Such scams may be impossible to detect, much less punish. He concludes that “turf frauds of many kinds, but especially those kinds which entail no penal consequences, are plentiful enough even at the present time” (300).2 Victorian and contemporary historians have established the changing nature of racing fraud, which became more businesslike as the sport became more commercialized.3 Victorian horse-racing fiction represents a distinctive subculture at the intersection of athletic competition and local and global economies of betting. J. Jeffrey Franklin analyzes gambling as “part of the Victorian discourse of money, [treated] as one among the other channels through which capital was circulated in nineteenth-century Britain” (34–35). I argue further that a focus on horse racing, and on fraud in particular, in Victorian fiction contributes not only to the histories of racing and gambling but also to the history of finance and financial fiction. Writers of fiction were particularly drawn to those earlier forms of fraud mentioned by Curzon, such as poisoning and laming, which could only be carried out by someone intimate enough with the horse to get close and do harm. Such acts of sabotage were motivated by vengeance—usually against the owners of the horse. The elements of class conflict and personal vendetta played into the overall themes of Victorian fiction. The problem of how to identify the perpetrator was consistent with that of other financially themed novels. Swindlers such as Charles Dickens’s Merdle in Little Dorrit (1855–57) [End Page 235] or Anthony Trollope’s Dobbs Broughton (also a horse player) in The Last Chronicle of Barset (1866–67) or Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now (1875) disguise their scams through false identities and elaborate schemes. In contrast, tampering with a horse to sabotage a race, on which great sums of money might be wagered, depends on the simple fact that horses cannot testify. Fiction has the capacity to examine the psychology of the saboteur as well as the experience of the horse. In this respect, examining frauds that involve tampering with the equine athlete opens up the study of financial fiction to the realm of animal studies.4 That Curzon sought a variety of terms—fraud, chicanery, and crime—to describe cheating in racing suggests the difficulty of definitions. The term fraud is expansive, encompassing many possible scenarios of dishonest behaviour. Chicanery seems quaint, and crime is inaccurate where the law is not involved. Within sports generally, Graham Brooks, Azeem Aleem, and Mark Button see fraud as a subset of corruption and offer a useful definition: fraud “is based on deception with the intention of securing some advantage—immediate or in the future—and depriving a third party such as individual(s), a small group of people or organisation of honest services or benefits at the expense of other individuals and organisations” (18). I keep this definition in mind while employing the term fraud in cases where a saboteur intends to deprive an owner of a sound horse, and, consequently, to defraud of their money the people who bet on that horse. Furthermore, such fraud may symbolically target an entire class of wealthy horse owners; crucially, it also physically harms the animal, which may or may not recover. With...

Is Justice Blind? Evidence from Federal Corruption Convictions

Are federal prosecutors influenced by partisan political concerns? We examine this question by analyzing forty years of federal corruption convictions at the state and federal district levels. Our key finding is that state-level corruption convictions fall by 8% in years when a state’s governor is of the same party as the U.S. president, a measure of state-federal political alignment. This effect is more precisely estimated for Republican than Democratic administrations. Our findings are robust to controls for state and national political environments, presidential fixed effects, election cycles, party tenure in the executive branch, and the changes in Honest Services law. In addition, we conduct a placebo test, finding that state-federal political alignment does not affect the total number of federal criminal convictions. Finally, we find no evidence that local-federal political alignment matters for corruption convictions at the district level. Our results are consistent with a significant level of partisan prosecutorial bias on the part of U.S. Attorneys.

Federal Criminal Law and International Corruption

The recent indictment of more than 40 individuals and entities in the FIFA corruption scandal demonstrates the expansive reach of the federal criminal law, raising important questions of extraterritorial jurisdiction and substantive law. This article argues that the existing law is sufficient to capture pervasive corruption in international organizations like Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) when their transactions reach domestic wires in the financial system. The principal charge in the FIFA case, for example, falls under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). But the extraterritorial application of RICO is far from settled law, and the dramatic scale of the racketeering conspiracy will have profound implications for the substantive law, presenting problems of legal specification and challenging the transactional model of crime. One of the indictment’s predicate offenses, moreover, is a novel honest services fraud charge that implicates the very nature of fiduciary duties in the international marketplace. This article suggests that the law should extend fiduciary protections against commercial bribery in the international sphere so long as the values underlying those protections accord with collectively shared norms. Finally, this article advances a conceptual understanding, informed by theories of global governance and development, of why the law should countenance international corruption. Federal prosecutors are becoming increasingly concerned with the integrity of globally integrated markets, and global prosecutions may carry the potential to strengthen deterrence, policy cohesion among decentralized stakeholders, and reinforce international norms of conduct.

Honest Services Fraud as a Criminal Breach of Fiduciary Duties

From a comparative perspective, the challenges that American courts and legislators are facing when trying to construe an honest services fraud statute are familiar. Almost all European countries have a general provision that criminalizes any breach of fiduciary duties that brings about economic harm to the principal. The comparative inquiry also helps shed light on the way in which the offense should be defined in a future statute. First, honest services fraud should be treated as a separate offense that is different from fraud; more specifically, the offense of honest services fraud should be conceived as a midpoint between fraud and embezzlement. Second, this offense—which could be defined as a “disloyalty” or “mismanagement” crime—should be construed along the lines of a derivate action for breach of fiduciary duties, although with higher standards, given that its violation triggers criminal sanctions. Third, this new disloyalty offense should include elements that are not required by current law, including whether “actual” or “reasonably foreseeable harm” is caused and whether the breach of the fiduciary duty is the proximate cause of the actual harm. The time has come to create a freestanding general disloyalty offense that requires an actual or reasonably foreseeable harm to the corporation as a prerequisite to criminal liability.

Criminal Corruption: Why Broad Definitions of Bribery Make Things Worse

Although the law of bribery may look profoundly under-inclusive, the push to expand it usually should be resisted. This article traces the history of two competing concepts of bribery — the “intent to influence” concept (a concept initially applied only to gifts given to judges) and the “illegal contract” concept. It argues that, if taken literally and applied to officials other than judges, “intent to influence” is now an unthinkable standard. The article defends the Supreme Court’s refusal to treat campaign contributions as bribes in the absence of an “explicit” quid pro quo and its refusal to read a statute criminalizing deprivations of “the intangible right of honest services” as scuttling the quid pro quo requirement. While recognizing that the “stream of benefits” metaphor can be compatible with this requirement, it cautions against allowing the requirement to degenerate into a “one hand washes the other” or “favoritism” standard. The article maintains that specific, ex ante regulations of the sort commonly found in ethical codes and campaign finance regulations provide a better way to limit corruption than bribery laws, but it warns that even these regulations should not prohibit all practices that may be the functional equivalent of bribery. The article concludes by speculating about whether the efforts of federal prosecutors to reduce corruption over the past 60 years have given us better government.

A Statutory Element in Exile: The Crucial 'Corrupt Intent' Element in Federal Bribery Laws

This article focuses on the word corruptly found in many bribery statutes, including 18 U.S.C. § 201. I argue that the adverb constitutes an independent element of the crime, and its presence requires the jury to summon its moral intuition to determine whether the behavior that satisfies the other elements of the statutory crime was performed with evil intent. I pay special attention to the problem of campaign contributions as bribes.It is unfortunate that many courts have effectively read the word corruptly out of the statute. The culprit is the Supreme Court’s opinion in Sun-Diamond. In that case, the Court distinguished bribery from illegal gratuities, and explained that the difference between the two was that bribery entailed a specific quid pro quo agreement. I argue that the Sun-Diamond Court’s silence on the corrupt intent element does not mean that the corrupt intent element is satisfied by the mere existence of a quid pro quo.Instead, I focus on the Supreme Court’s stated preference in Sun-Diamond and Skilling that federal anti-corruption laws should be narrowly construed. Bribery laws must be read narrowly because they threaten to capture a great deal of benign political activity, such as logrolling, vote-trading, and campaign contributions by special interest groups. The corrupt intent element functions to effectively narrow these potentially overinclusive anti-corruption laws by requiring the jury to find that the defendant acted with an evil mind. Although the precise contours of moral corruption will vary case-by-case, the corrupt intent element requires prosecutors to argue a theory of why a given quid pro quo was corrupt and therefore illegal. To add more meat to the bones of corrupt intent, I make a brief detour through political theory to note how one’s political philosophy will affect one’s determination of whether a given quid pro quo (especially one involving a campaign contribution) is corrupt. I also explain that because bribery is effectively a lesser-included offense of Hobbs Act extortion and honest services mail or wire fraud, the corrupt intent element should carry over into these crimes.

Criminal Constitutional Avoidance

Just two terms ago in United States v. Skilling, the Supreme Court used the avoidance canon in response to a void-for-vagueness challenge to the federal criminal fraud statute. As explained below, the Court severely restricted the statute’s meaning, limiting its proscription against “deprivation of honest services” to bribery and kickbacks.This article argues that, contrary to the Court’s decision in Skilling, the canon of constitutional avoidance is inappropriate in void-for-vagueness cases. This is because such cases do not present a statutory ambiguity that requires choosing between competing meanings or interpretations. Instead, void-for-vagueness challenges concern statutes that either have a constitutionally clear meaning (and are not void-for-vagueness) or do not have a constitutionally clear meaning (and are void for vagueness). In other words, this article claims that the absence of statutory ambiguity — one interpretation that complies with the Constitution and one interpretation that indicates constitutional infirmities — in void-for-vagueness cases makes the use of the avoidance canon improper in such cases. Simply put, vague criminal statutes are not inherently ambiguous. Instead of offering a choice between two meanings, they are indefinite, uncertain, and unclear. And, it is not the potential meanings of the vague statute that create constitutional problems; there is only a constitutional problem if there is no ascertainable meaning. Part I of this article explores the justifications for the canon of constitutional avoidance. In Part II, this article describes the Court’s void-for-vagueness doctrine and its use of the avoidance canon to circumvent the vagueness question in Skilling. Part III argues that the use of the avoidance canon in Skilling was improper, and explains why it is not an appropriate vehicle to respond to void-for-vagueness constitutional challenges to federal criminal statutes. Part IV explores the negative theoretical and practical consequences of applying the avoidance canon to potentially vague statutes. Finally, Part V concludes the article by outlining a model for applying the avoidance canon to other constitutional questions involving criminal statutes,

Are Large Corporate Fines Levied on the Right Party and Do They Have Long Term Negative Consequences?

In the past twenty years, large corporate fines have been levied on U.S. businesses - in effect on the shareholders who today in the main have no meaningful say in the management of the enterprise. In many such instances, no corporate officers have been charged with a crime, and often appear only too happy to utilize corporate (shareholder) funds to pay the fines for their corporate actions. This paper explores management’s responsibilities under ‘Agency Theory,’ ‘The Honest Services (Work) Law’ and ‘The Responsible Corporate Officer Doctrine.’ The paper concludes as to whether the use of corporate funds by management in the payment of large fines has a negative impact on stock prices.

Reframing the Right: Using Theories of Intangible Property to Target Honest Services Fraud After Skilling

Few federal criminal statutes have been as widely charged --- and widely criticized --- as the honest services statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1346. Primarily, this is because federal prosecutors have used the statute to charge corrupt officials with mail or wire fraud for denying citizens the intangible right to their impartial services, regardless of whether those citizens suffered any financial or proprietary loss --- an element typically required under the traditional mail and wire fraud statutes. Recently, in Skilling v. United States, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the honest services theory when it interpreted § 1346 to reach only bribery or kickback schemes. Scholars and commentators predict the decision will mark the end of federal prosecutions for more inchoate forms of fraud, such as undisclosed self-dealing and hidden conflicts of interest. Fearing as much, members of Congress have proposed legislation to criminalize undisclosed self-dealing expressly and thereby retain the full anti-corruption enforcement power of the mail and wire fraud statutes. In response, this Note argues that initial reactions to Skilling have overstated the extent to which federal prosecutors are now hindered in their ability to prosecute honest services misconduct. Just as they have done for decades, prosecutors can and should continue to target honest services misconduct using the traditional mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343, by reframing the victim’s right as an intangible property right. This Note provides a framework for how prosecutors can do so while largely replicating the sweep and targets of pre-Skilling § 1346 honest services prosecutions and concludes that such an exercise of prosecutorial discretion is both appropriate and desirable.

Honest Services Update: Directors’ Liability Concerns After Skilling and Black

This Article will set out the current law in the honest services area after a quick historical review for context. Then, civil standards and penalties for breach of a corporate officer or director's fiduciary obligations will be outlined to give a more complete picture of what hazards officers and directors face when discharging their duties in a manner less than sufficient.

The Supreme Court Confronts The Ghosts of Enron: Assessing The Past, Present and Future of Corporate Fraud Enforcement

The U.S. Supreme Court ended its 2010 term with a significant ruling on the appeal of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling that sharply curtailed application of the “honest services” doctrine, which had figured prominently in Skilling’s conviction. The Court held that the conceptual breadth of the term “honest services” and the apparent inconsistency of rulings applying the doctrine rendered it unconstitutionally vague unless confined to cases of bribery or kickbacks. Notably, Enron and other corporate fraud cases did not involve either form of corruption. This article reviews the development of the honest services doctrine, discusses and analyzes the Skilling decision, and argues that future corporate fraud enforcement is likely to be hindered not only by the specifics of the Skilling decision but also by its underlying ethical philosophy.

Enforcing Fiduciary Duties Through Criminal Prosecution of Honest Services Fraud

author presented this text to scholars invited to Notre Dame Law School’s Spring 2009 Symposium, The Future of Fiduciary Duties in Corporate Law,” held on Friday, March 27, 2009. An article will follow. Comments are welcome.

Let Voters Decide

Back to table of contents Previous article Letters to the EditorFull AccessLet Voters DecideRoger Z. Samuel, M.D.Roger Z. SamuelSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:19 Dec 2008https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.43.24.0020aI disagree with Dr. Abraham Halpern's statement in his letter in the October 3 issue that requiring candidates for APA office to disclose all potential conflicts of interest may result in the least-qualified members running for office. When did a lack of conflicts of interest make an APA member “least qualified”?This should be an issue decided by the majority of voters, not by a small group of individuals with a biased point of view. Let all actual or potential conflicts of interest be aired so we can make decisions with full access to information. It is up to us, the voting members, to decide which factors are important in our choice of elected officials.Not only do I feel that disclosure is important, I also feel that our elected leaders should not have ties because this directly or indirectly impacts their abilities to provide honest services to APA. I would prefer an APA official with no other loyalties.Boca Raton, Fla. ISSUES NewArchived

Business Fiduciary Relationships and Honest Services Fraud: A Defense of the Statute

“Fraud, like many familiar concepts, is one which seems to have a perfectly obvious meaning until we try to define it.” This quote succinctly summarizes the essential problem Congress faced in drafting a law to prohibit fraud through the use of the mails and wire. It also highlights the problem courts have when interpreting the scope of a law meant to deal with this definitional difficulty. While it is clear that criminal law should doubtless tackle the evil that is fraud, and that Congress has the power to prohibit the use of private interstate carriers such as FedEx or UPS for the perpetuation of fraud, this still leaves the problems of 1) how one defines fraud, and 2) how one resolves the legal issues that are created when Congress enacts a statute to address it. The broad construction of the mail fraud statute, combined with prosecutors’ attempts to further expand the statute with new theories of prosecution, has led some to call the mail fraud statute the prosecutor’s “Stradivarius,” “Colt 45,” or “Uzi.” “Judge Ralph K. Winter noted in referring to ‘various federal fraud statutes–in particular, the mail and wire fraud statutes,’ that ‘with regard to the statutory weapons available to prosecutors, [fraud statutes] rank by analogy with hydrogen bombs on stealth aircraft.”’ The discomfort with the provision’s breadth reflected in these analogies suggests the fundamental paradox of the statute: one of the principal purposes of anti-fraud provisions, on both the state and federal level, is to protect the integrity of commerce, but if it is applied too expansively, there could be potential chilling effects on a wide range of legitimate business activities. This concern is even more pronounced in the context of intangible rights fraud as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1346, which states that “for the purpose of this chapter, the term ‘scheme or artifice to defraud’ includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” This Note examines the nexus between “honest services” mail fraud and the important fiduciary relationships commonly found in commercial enterprise and makes a recommendation on how courts can continue to uphold the validity and strength of § 1346 while addressing its current weaknesses. This Note is principally focused on the exploration of the connection between violations of private fiduciary obligations and “honest services” fraud in the criminal law. It is concerned, on the one hand, with the possible chilling effects of the uncertainty of where criminal liability arises and, on the other, the need for a strong anti-fraud statute. The solution proposed in this Note integrates the two major approaches courts have developed in dealing with § 1346.

New Federalism's Unanswered Question: Who Should Prosecute State and Local Officials for Political Corruption?

This Article examines a fundamental tension in the effort to attack corruption and achieve reform. Many prosecutions of state and local officials are brought by the federal government. Yet, the Supreme Court, through its New Federalism jurisprudence, is carving out an enhanced vision of state sovereignty. One aspect of sovereignty is the ability not only to choose officials, but to control their conduct while in office and to discipline them. Yet the national sovereign often polices state officials. Section I examines the statutory basis of the prosecutions. The Article contends that, contrary to the general view, the relevant statutes are clearly aimed at political corruption. They represent a conscious national decision to pursue corrupt governmental activity, rather than simply criminal laws that happen to reach illegal official behavior. Section II examines major themes of the Court's New Federalism, as well as academic commentary. The analysis emphasizes the extent to which the cases present the states as almost mini-republics. Section III focuses on the inconsistency between the anti-corruption prosecutions and the New Federalism. Particular emphasis is placed on the concept of accountability. Cases such as New York and Printz focus on citizens knowing whom to blame in the case of government actions with which they do not agree. It is essentially the same notion of accountability that embraces the discipline of an official potentially guilty of wrongdoing. Section IV begins the search for lines of authority that might support an active national role. It analyzes the patronage cases, beginning with Elrod v. Burns. I find in them more than just the First Amendment analysis principally relied on; they are presented as endorsing national oversight of state political processes. The cases are analyzed as reaching beyond the franchise - indeed, voting rights precedents play little or no role - and extending to the ongoing neutrality and fairness of government. The cases provide some support for the federal role that the corruption prosecutions represent. Section V seeks other possible bases of support for a protective role. Numerous themes in the American legal tradition are relevant to the question of guarding the guardians. States may be unable to police certain problems adequately, especially if those involved are investigating themselves. The national government has always shown a special solicitude for matters such as the franchise, the electoral process, and the protection of civil rights. I also examine the development by the lower federal courts of the doctrine of the citizen's intangible right to honest services. Section VI examines scenarios in which the Court might face the reconciliation problem. One area is the use of the affecting commerce jurisdictional element in the Hobbs Act. I consider the possibility of a substantial curtailment here, as well as in the jurisdictional reach of the mail fraud statute. The Court may reconsider substantive issues, such as the scope of the honest services doctrine. A particularly likely battleground is the federal program bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 666. There is considerable ferment in the lower courts about the reach of a statute which appears to criminalize a range of behavior in any jurisdiction receiving a threshold level of federal funds, regardless of the existence of any connection between the conduct and the funds. The most interesting debate centers on the extent to which Sec. 666 is a use of the Necessary and Proper clause to augment the Spending Power by ensuring that there is honesty throughout recipient jurisdictions. In sum, I see areas in which the New Federalism might lead to cutting back federal prosecutions of state and local officials. On the other hand, the national protective role has strong support. Eliminating prosecutions would seem the constitutional equivalent of drastic reductions in federal protection of civil rights and regulation of the national economy. None of these is likely to happen.