Corruption, Constitutional Legislation, and State Legislative Processes: Lessons From a Comparative and Historical Approach to the Anti-Corruption Provisions in the Legislative Articles of the Constitutions of Montana and South Dakota

When admitted to the Union in 1889, Montana and South Dakota included two identical anti-corruption provisions in the legislative article of their respective constitutions. One of the measures prohibited bribery of public officials, and the other barred corrupt solicitation by them. These measures reflected a common concern about government corruption in the western territories during the late nineteenth century. Nearly a century later, both states attempted to amend the legislative articles of their constitutions to eliminate the bribery and corrupt solicitation clauses, without substituting similar provisions in their place. In Montana, voters approved the proposed revisions when they voted to adopt an entirely new constitution. By contrast, South Dakota voters defeated multiple ballot measures passed by the South Dakota legislature which would have repealed both clauses from that state’s constitution, also providing for no substitutes. Although the scholarly literature has examined other anti-corruption features of these states’ constitutions, the bribery and corrupt solicitation clauses have remained largely untreated. This article seeks to fill that gap by tracing the history of political corruption in the late nineteenth century as the impetus leading to the adoption of the bribery and corrupt solicitation clauses and examining the political influences prompting repeal efforts roughly a century later.