BILL NUMBER:  S8169

 TITLE OF BILL :  An act to amend the penal law, in relation to giving
and/or receiving unlawful benefits

 PURPOSE

This bill makes it a crime for public officials to receive or give any
benefit (i.e. gift) with a value in excess of $3,000 simply because of
that person's official position.

Under New York's current unlawful gratuity receiving and giving
statutes, a public official must engage in some form of official
conduct to be found guilty. This proposal would eliminate that
requirement and make this type of behavior a crime absent official
action taken by the public official.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section one of the bill amends the penal law to create a new crime for
giving unlawful benefits. A person is guilty of giving unlawful
benefits when he or she directly or indirectly gives, offers, or
promises any benefit in excess of three thousand dollars to a public
official because of that person's official position. Giving unlawful
benefits would be punishable as a class E felony.

              

Section two of the bill amends the penal law to create a new crime for
receiving unlawful benefits. A public official is guilty of receiving
unlawful benefits when he or she receives, directly, or indirectly,
any benefit with a value in excess of three thousand dollars simply
because of that person's official position. Receiving unlawful
benefits would be punishable as a class E felony.

Section three of the bill is the effective date.

 JUSTIFICATION

Currently, New York does not have a "pure" gift giving prohibition in
the penal law. This bill would create such a statute by not requiring
proof that a gratuity was given "for or because of any particular
official act. By making this change, the bill would effectively make
it a crime to give a public official a gift simply because of his or
her official position. This loophole in the law was recently
highlighted in the Supreme Court's decision in McDonnell v. United
States - which effectively held that the acts former Virginia Governor
Bob McDonnell undertook in exchange for gifts were not official enough
to qualify as "official" government acts for purposes of the bribery
or theft of honest services statutes.

At its most basic premise, politicians should not be accepting
anything of value, money or otherwise simply for doing their jobs. It
is time we make that abundantly clear by making the ability to give
gifts to officials just for the sake of it illegal.

It should be noted this proposal was also made by the New York State
Bar Association Government Ethics Task Force in 2011.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

New bill.

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

None.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect immediately.