In National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius (“NFIB”), the Supreme Court maintained both its jurisdiction over the case and the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by threading the needle between the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) and Congress’s taxing power under the Constitution.
Statutory Interpretation
The Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. Inc v Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc has created a cottage industry in choreography.
Interpretation requires an object: a text, an act, a concept, a something to be interpreted. An interpreter must pick out that object.
Many tenets of statutory interpretation take a peculiar form. They allow consideration of outside information—legislative history, practical consequences, the statute’s title, etc.—but only if the statute’s text is unclear or ambiguous.
I. Cases and Problems
I. The Theoretical Framework
The development of an originalist methodology requires a theoretical framework, the elaboration of which can begin with the idea of meaning itself.
A. The Meaning of “Meaning”
I. Why Interpretive Formalism Has Failed
A conference about “best practices” for legal inquiry supposes that there are practices. In the field of legal interpretation, that assumption is doubtful.