The high court’s 6-3 opinion along ideological lines found the law criminalizes bribes given before an official act, not rewards handed out after.
Eg: it’s ok to give Supreme Court Justices money after they rule in your favor because it’s normal and ok to regularly hand them amounts much larger than their salary. The Democrats on the court were the dissenters.
Omg, this is amazing. Ok hear me out, you think bribes are expensive, but at local or even state levels they can be very reasonable, so here’s what we do is GoFundMe for legislators, where regular people bid money into escrow for a certain rep’s vote and if they do it, they get the cash. Of course people of wrong opinion can also bid so it’s not guaranteed to get you what you want, but you can collectively at least make it more expensive for them! Normal bribery requires all kinds of relationship development and professional lobbyists to make sure it’s works right, so it’s available only to the well funded few. Post-vote bribery is open to all and cuts the smarmy middlemen.
I know you’re appalled, but consider how out of touch most reps are from their constituents. They are told all day long by these lobbyists that you don’t really hate genocide or that you really count on them to keep drilling for oil. Here you can tell your real values to their face with money, the same arbiter of truth those billionaires are using. Not for a campaign, but for a specific vote!
That might work for the very short term. But the “bribes” you see are campaign finance and they are only so small because of laws. The real bribes are the jobs and consulting work after.
If you cam just pay them outright, costs will skyrocket.