Cite as: 518 U. S. 668 (1996)
Scalia, J., dissenting
entirely constitutional, is not entirely desirable, and so they have set about passing laws to prohibit it in some but not all instances. As a consequence, government contracting is subject to the most extraordinary number of laws and regulations at the federal, state, and local levels.
The United States Code contains a categorical statutory prohibition on political contributions by those negotiating for or performing contracts with the Federal Government, 2 U. S. C. § 441c, competitive bidding requirements for contracts with executive agencies, 41 U. S. C. §§ 252-253, public corruption and bribery statutes, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 201, and countless other statutory requirements that restrict Government officials' discretion in awarding contracts. "There are already over four thousand individual statutory provisions that affect the [Defense Department's] procurement process." Pyatt, Procurement Competition at Work: The Navy's Experience, 6 Yale J. Reg. 319, 319-320 (1989). Federal regulations are even more widespread. As one handbook in the area has explained, "[t]heir procedural and substantive requirements dictate, to an oftentimes astonishing specificity, how the entire contracting process will be conducted." ABA General Practice Section, Federal Procurement Regulations: Policy, Practice and Procedures 1 (1987). That is why it is no surprise in this area to find a 253-page book just setting forth "fundamentals," E. Massengale, Fundamentals of Federal Contract Law (1991), or a mere "desk-book" that runs 436 pages, ABA Section of Public Contract Law, Government Contract Law: The Deskbook for Procurement Professionals (1995). Such "summaries" are indispensable when, for example, the regulations that constitute the "Federal Acquisition Regulations System" total some 5,037 pages of fine print. See Title 48 CFR (1995).
Similar systems of detailed statutes and regulations exist throughout the States. In addition to the various statutes criminalizing bribes to government officials and other forms
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