TRACE International released a report on bribery in China that includes some really interesting charts. While I’m sure that bribery is more prevelant in China than in the US, it would be interesting to see similar charts for bribery here at home.

SPECIFIC NATURE OF BRIBE DEMANDS

(via Ethics World)

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Riffing off of the estimable Nisha Thompson’s Local Sunlight feature, there are a couple of Sunlight related stories happening across our northern border and across the pond in Europe. First, our friends in Europe are taking after our Congress and considering passing sweeping lobbying disclosure for the EU for the very first time:

The European Commission has proposed new rules that could require European Union lobbyists to register for the first time, as part of a new transparency effort spawned after news reports of Abramoff’s activities broke.

Andreas Geiger, a founder and managing partner at Alber & Geiger, a public policy firm with offices in Berlin and Brussels, told The Hill that all lobbyists now need to lobby the EU is to have an access badge. To get one, lobbyists must state who they are working for and undergo a background check. But there are no records of what issues lobbyists are working on, or how much they are getting paid for their work.

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There are an estimated 15,000 people who lobby the EU, about half the number who lobby Washington. As in the United States, Geiger says, the lobbying industry is booming in Brussels.

Next up, in Canada, a major scandal is brewing. Imagine if back in 2001 the Democratic leadership bribed Jim Jeffords with $1 million to switch from Republican to Independent and thus tip the Senate majority into Democratic hands. That would certainly be a major national scandal. Well, that’s what’s going on in the maple leaf country. According to TPM:

Back in 2005, while the former Liberal government was tottering on the brink of collapse after many years in power, representatives of the opposition Conservatives went to an independent MP whose vote could topple the government and offered him a bribe for his vote.

The nature and context of the alleged bribe are particularly ghastly. The late Chuck Cadman was then in the final stages of terminal cancer. And in exchange for his vote, Conservative Party reps offered to purchase a $1 million life insurance policy for Cadman "and a few other things" in order to provide for his wife.

Cadman refused, voted to keep the government in power rather than cause a new election, and died a short time later.

And it turns out that the current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was opposition leader at the time of the alleged bribe attempt, knew about it:

Stephen Harper knew Conservative party officials were making a financial offer to independent MP Chuck Cadman in exchange for his vote to topple the minority Liberal government in May 2005, a new book charges.

Harper was Opposition leader when two party operatives offered Cadman, who had terminal cancer, a million-dollar life insurance policy, according to the book.

In an audio tape released to the Star by the publisher of Like A Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, it is clear that Harper knew of the offer when he was interviewed by author Tom Zytaruk in September 2005.

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After the President signed his name to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, members of Congress had until January 1st to vacacte their seats if they wanted to trade the black suit and American flag lapel of Capitol Hill for the black suit and American flag lapel of K Street. The ethics reform bill extended the "cooling off" period for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists from one year to two years, which would leave retired members of Congress with 2 years to find something to do - write your memoirs or teach a class at the university that got so many earmarks they named a building after you - before they can make the big bucks on K Street. When Sen. Trent Lott announced his sudden retirement before the "cooling off" extension took effect it was clear that he wasn’t looking to settle down at the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at Ole Miss. No, Lott was getting out early to work with his old bipartisan pal John Breaux on K Street.

There were, however, rumors that avoiding the "cooling off" extension was not the exact reason for Lott’s early exit from his long congressional career. The Wall Street Journal puts those rumors to rest by publishing details of a federal investigation into Lott’s possible role in a case involving the bribing of Mississippi judges by his half-brother Richard "Dickie" Scruggs:

Federal agents are investigating whether former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott knowingly played a role in an alleged conspiracy in 2006 to influence a Mississippi judge presiding over a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against famed plaintiff attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, according to people familiar with the situation.

Mr. Scruggs and several associates are scheduled to stand trial March 31 on charges that they offered $40,000 in bribes to State Court Judge Henry L. Lackey in return for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit against Mr. Scruggs over $26.5 million in legal fees.

Mr. Lott, who is a brother-in-law to Mr. Scruggs, unexpectedly announced his resignation from the Senate two days before Mr. Scruggs was indicted last November. Since then, Mr. Lott has been interviewed by federal agents at least once, according to a person familiar with the case.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Oxford, Miss., which is leading the investigation, is also examining whether several associates of Mr. Scruggs induced a different Mississippi jurist, Hinds County Judge Robert Delaughter, to rule in favor of Mr. Scruggs in a separate lawsuit by promising that Mr. Lott would recommend Judge Delaughter for a seat on the federal bench.

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Several people familiar with the situation say that associates of Mr. Scruggs told investigators that Mr. Scruggs relayed Judge Delaughter’s interest in the federal judgeship to then-Sen. Lott. In early 2006, Mr. Lott called the judge and discussed his interest in the federal bench, those people say. Seven months later, in August 2006, Judge Delaughter delivered a ruling widely considered favorable to Mr. Scruggs.

A month after that, President Bush nominated a Gulfport, Miss., lawyer named Halil "Sul" Ozerden to the vacant seat on the federal bench Mr. Delaughter had allegedly been interested in. People familiar with the process said Mr. Lott and Mississippi’s other U.S. senator, Thad Cochran, approved of the appointment. The full Senate confirmed Mr. Ozerden in April 2007.

…Messrs. Scruggs and Langston learned that Mr. Delaughter was interested in becoming a federal judge. "Based on this knowledge," the prosecutor said, "Scruggs told Langston to let the judge know that if he ruled in his favor he would pass his name along for consideration regarding the federal judgeship."…

At a hearing on motions related to Mr. Scruggs’s trial yesterday, Mr. Balducci [the attorney who offered the bribe to Judge Lackey] testified that Mr. Scruggs tried to use Sen. Lott to influence Mr. Delaughter.

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