If all the conversations took place on the House floor (as it appears from the Slate story), the Constitution's speech or debate clause would make prosecution difficult. There's a similar case from Kansas, Kansas v. Neufeld, 926 P.2d 1325 (Kan. 1996) where one lawmaker threatened to send a picture of another lawmaker in a compromising position with two female lobbyists to his wife unless he voted in a particular way.  The Kansas court said that evidence about these discussions, on the floor of the state legislature before a vote, could not be used because of the state constitution's speech or debate clause.  The court did find the behavior corrupt and reprehensible.  Although Neufeld deals with a state speech or debate clause, there are federal cases that would limit the ability of prosecutors to use such conversations on the floor of Congress as evidence in a bribery case because they would reveal the motivation behind a legislative act (here voting for the Medicare bill).  E.g., Brewster (1972), Helstoski (1979).

At 09:26 AM 12/2/2003, you wrote:

Timothy Noah of Slate offers <http://slate.msn.com/id/2091787/>this analysis of reports relating to carrots and sticks allegedly put in front of Rep. Nick Smith to get his vote on the recent Medicare bill. Noah suggests that if the facts as reported in the press are true, this may be a violation of federal bribery law and I think he's right. I am less sure as to whether the threats not to support Smith's son for office, who is running to succeed him, would be prosecutable under some kind of extortion statute such as the Hobbs Act

Elizabeth Garrett
Professor of Law
Director, USC-Caltech Center
        for the Study of Law and Politics
University of Southern California Law School
699 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Phone:  213-821-5438
Fax:  213-740-5502