A Search for Legal Meaning and Good Judging Under a Textualist Lenst
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Why the Late Justice Scalia Was Wrong: the Fallacies of Constitutional Textualism
Louisiana State University Law Center LSU Law Digital Commons Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2017 Why the Late Justice Scalia Was Wrong: The Fallacies of Constitutional Textualism Ken Levy Louisiana State University Law Center, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Fourteenth Amendment Commons Repository Citation Levy, Ken, "Why the Late Justice Scalia Was Wrong: The Fallacies of Constitutional Textualism" (2017). Journal Articles. 413. https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/faculty_scholarship/413 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +(,121/,1( Citation: Ken Levy, Why the Late Justice Scalia Was Wrong: The Fallacies of Constitutional Textualism, 21 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 45 (2017) Provided by: LSU Law Library Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Fri Mar 16 15:53:01 2018 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: Copyright Information Use QR Code reader to send PDF to your smartphone or tablet device WHY THE LATE JUSTICE SCALIA WAS WRONG: THE FALLACIES OF CONSTITUTIONAL TEXTUALISM by Ken Levy * The late justice Scalia emphatically rejected the notion that there is a general "right to privacy" in the Constitution, despite the many cases that have held otherwise over the past several decades. -
A Tale of Two Textualists: a Critical Comparison of Justices Black and Scalia Michael J
College of William & Mary Law School William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository Faculty Publications Faculty and Deans 1994 A Tale of Two Textualists: A Critical Comparison of Justices Black and Scalia Michael J. Gerhardt Repository Citation Gerhardt, Michael J., "A Tale of Two Textualists: A Critical Comparison of Justices Black and Scalia" (1994). Faculty Publications. 990. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/990 Copyright c 1994 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs ARTICLES A TALE OF TWO TEXTUALISTS: A CRITICAL COMPARISON OF JUSTICES BLACK AND SCALIA MICHAEL J. GERHARDT* The idea that Justices Hugo Black and Antonin Scalia have anything in common jurisprudentially is counterintuitive. Justice Black is associated with the progressive social and economic legislation symbolized by the New Deal and with judicial activism in protecting the poor and disen franchised.1 He is beloved by many liberals as a champion of individual rights, especially freedom of speech and of the press. In contrast, Justice Scalia is revered by conservatives as a true believer-combating the rising tide of liberalism, big government, and judicial activism-set on restoring traditional notions of federalism and judicial restraint.2 Any effort to liken these two Justices makes both liberals and conservatives recoil. * Professor of Law, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, The College of William and Mary. B.A. Yale University; M.Sc. London School of Economics; J.D. University of Chicago. I am grateful for the encouragement and helpful comments on earlier drafts I received from Marc Arkin, Erwin Chemerinsky, George Cochran, Neal Devins, Jill Fisch, Tracy Higgins, Michael Herz, Sandy Levinson, Chip Lupu, Tracey Maclin, John McGinnis, Peter Shane, Bill Treanor, Steve Wermiel, and Ron Wright. -
Is Textualism Doomed?
RESPONSE IS TEXTUALISM DOOMED? † ILYA SOMIN In response to Jonathan R. Siegel, The Inexorable Radicalization of Tex- tualism, 158 U. PA. L. REV. 117 (2009). In a provocative recent article, Jonathan Siegel argues that textual- ism is ultimately doomed to irrelevance because its “inexorable radica- lization . will cause it to lose the interpretation wars.”1 Siegel con- tends that textualism’s commitment to the “axiom” that “the statutory text is the law” renders it blind to all competing considerations, the- reby forcing textualist judges to enforce “absurd” interpretations of statutes and ones based on “scrivener’s errors.”2 Over time, textualism will “work itself pure,” eliminating any constraints on its inherent log- ic.3 This in turn is likely to make the results of textualism so unattrac- tive that it will lose out to rival approaches such as purposivism and in- tentionalism.4 Siegel has made a compelling argument and identified some poss- ible genuine weaknesses of textualism. I believe he is correct to con- clude that textualism is unlikely to win a decisive victory in the longstanding debate over interpretation. But both his normative cri- tique of textualism and his positive prediction about textualism’s fu- ture are overdrawn. In Part I of this Response, I take issue with elements of Siegel’s normative analysis. I argue that textualism’s adherence to text is † Associate Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law. 1 Jonathan R. Siegel, The Inexorable Radicalization of Textualism, 158 U. PA. L. REV. 117, 178 (2009). 2 Id. at 144-45. 3 Id. at 153. -
Textualism, Contract Theory, and the Interpretation of Treaties
CURTIS J. MAHONEY Treaties as Contracts: Textualism, Contract Theory, and the Interpretation of Treaties ABSTRACT. With the nation's treaty obligations proliferating and foreign affairs cases taking up a growing share of the Supreme Court's docket, it is surprising how undertheorized the field of treaty interpretation remains. To fill this void, some have suggested that textualism, which has had a major impact on statutory interpretation over the past two decades, should be applied to treaty interpretation. This Note rebuts that notion and suggests instead that courts draw from modern contract theory in developing canons of treaty interpretation. AUTHOR. Yale Law School, J.D. zoo6; Harvard College, A.B. 20oo. The author wishes to thank Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr., for introducing him to the field of statutory interpretation and for advising the research project that led to this Note. He also wishes to thank Professor Akhil Amar, Aaron Crowell, Justin Florence, Kate Wiltenburg Todrys, and Kimberly Gahan for their comments on earlier drafts. Finally, he wishes to thank Rebecca Iverson Mahoney for all of her love and support. 824 Imaged with the Permission of Yale Law Journal NOTE CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 826 I. STATE OF THE DOCTRINE 827 A. Treaty Interpretation in the Supreme Court 829 B. The Theoretical Problem 833 II. THE CASE FOR TEXTUALISM APPLIED TO TREATIES 834 A. Originalism and Treaty Interpretation 834 B. Public Choice Theory and the Structural Case for Textualism in Statutory Interpretation 838 C. The Structural Argument Applied to Treaty Interpretation 841 D. The Practical Application of Textualism to Treaty Interpretation 844 III. -
Importance of Statutory Interpretation Statutory Interpretation Is An
Importance of statutory interpretation Statutory interpretation is an important aspect of the common law. In about half of all reported cases in Australia, the courts are required to rule on the meaning of legislation. Interpretation Acts The meaning of Commonwealth legislation is governed by the provisions in the Acts Interpretations Act (1901). It prescribes the meanings of common terms and provides courts with clear directions to resolve a range of potential inconsistencies. The Traditional (General) Rules – sometimes referred to as Literalism The traditional common-law approach to statutory interpretation was to "look at the words of the Act". This approach was founded on the assumption that the statute alone was a reliable guide to the intent of the Parliament. That is, Parliament said what it means, and means what it said (within the context of the legislation). However, to assist the courts in interpreting legislation, judges relied upon three general rules (REFER SEPARATE DOCUMENT CONCERNING A 4TH RULE – THE MORE THAN RULE). These were the: Literal Rule: The literal rule dictated that the courts gave effect to the "ordinary and natural meaning" of legislation. This Rule was defined by Higgins J, in The Amalgamated Society of Engineers v The Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd (1920). Justice Higgins said “The fundamental rule of interpretation, to which all others are subordinate, is that a statute is to be expounded according to the intent of the Parliament that made it; and that intention has to be found by an examination of the language used in the whole of the statute as a whole. The question is, what does the language mean; and when we find what the language means in it's ordinary and natural sense, it is our duty to obey that meaning, even if we think the result to be inconvenient, impolitic or improbable”. -
The Political Process, Equal Protection, and Substantive Due Process
ARTICLES THE POLITICAL PROCESS, EQUAL PROTECTION, AND SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS Jesse H. Choper* Stephen F. Ross** ABSTRACT In its landmark decision in Carolene Products, the Supreme Court crafted a uniquely American solution to the counter-majoritarian dilemma present in any constitutional democracy: when unelected judges should substantively review policy choices made by elected legislators and executives. The political process theory underlying that decision is that a court with a history of decisions based on judicial ideology should limit close review of government actions to three situations: (1) when the action contravenes a specific provision of the Bill of Rights, (2) when the action threatens to improperly limit the political process, or (3) with regard to the broadly worded Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, when courts determine that the political process does not work normally. The Supreme Court has not faithfully implemented this approach over the years. However, neither Justices nor commentators have developed a superior alternative approach. We believe that most Americans ought to prefer a return to Carolene Products, as superior (either philosophically or because of risk aversion) to leaving important constitutional precedents subject to the vagaries of highly partisan politics. Our approach builds upon insights of Justices Harlan Fiske Stone, Robert Jackson, and Thurgood Marshall. First, courts should consider challenges initially under the Equal Protection Clause. Second, the category of cases warranting heightened judicial scrutiny should be expanded to include those in which claimants can prove that they are excluded from the Madisonian factional “wheeling and dealing” that characterizes ordinary politics. Third, substantive due process claims should remain available, but only where claimants can demonstrate that animus or prejudice precludes their ability to use the political process to redress their grievances. -
Statutory Interpretation in a Nutshell
THE CANADIAN BAR REVIEW VOL. XVI - JANUARY, 1938 - - NO. 1 STATUTE INTERPRETATION IN A NUTSHELL PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS RULE I.-If you are trying to guess what meaning a; court will :attach to a section in a statute which has not yet been passed on by a court, you should be careful how you use. Craies' Statute Law and Maxwell on The Interpretation of Statutes. As armouries of arguments for counsel they can be very useful: but, you must know how to choose your weapon. In at least three respects these legal classics are very defective (a) Both books assume one great sun of a principle, "the plain meaning rule", around which revolve .in planetary order a series of minor rules of- construction : both assume that what courts do is unswervingly determined by that one principle . This is not so. Examine a few recent cases and you will find not a principle - nothing so definite as that - but an approach, - a certain attitude towards the words of a statute. Rook closer and -,you will see that there is not one single approach, but three,._ (i) "the literal rule", (ii) "the golden rule", - (iii) "tithe mischièlf rule". Any one of these approaches may be selected by your -.court : which it does decide to "select may, in a élose Yourcase, be t-he determining element in its decision .2 guess should therefore be based on an application of all three approaches : you should not be misled by Craies and Maxwell into thinking there is only one to consider. (b) Both books base their rules not on decisions, not on what the courts did in cases before them, but on dicta, the 1 Thus in Vacher v. -
Antonin Scalia's Textualism in Philosophy, Theology, and Judicial
Antonin Scalia’s Textualism in philosophy, theology, and judicial interpretation of the Constitution* Herman Philipse** 1. Introduction In his forceful and beautifully written essay ‘A Matter of Interpretation’, Justice Antonin Scalia proposed two interrelated theses, a minor and a major one.1 The minor thesis is a causal or historical conjecture and it says that the great liberty taken by judges of the Supreme Court in interpreting statutes and the Constitution is largely due to the influence of the common-law tradition upon legal training in American law schools.2 According to the major thesis, which is normative, this liberty of interpretation is undesirable, because it infringes upon the separation of powers in a modern democracy. If, under the pretext of interpreting laws, judges of the Supreme Court in fact revise the Constitution and promulgate new laws, they are usurping the legislative power that is exclusively assigned to the legislature. For this reason, the Supreme Court, and indeed all courts, should adopt a method of interpretation called ‘Textualism’ or ‘Originalism’, according to which the aim of judicial interpretation is to establish the original meaning of a statutory text.3 As Justice Scalia urges, the question of whether ‘life-tenured judges are free to revise statutes and constitutions adopted by the people and their representatives’ is ‘a question utterly central to the existence of democratic government’ (p. 133). However, both in the United States and in Europe the vast majority of judges reject Justice’s Scalia’s methodology of Textualism, so that the issue of Textualism is a central controversy in the philosophy of law. -
But That Is Absurd!: Why Specific Absurdity Undermines Textualism Linda D
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Brooklyn Law School: BrooklynWorks Brooklyn Law Review Volume 76 Issue 3 SYMPOSIUM: Article 2 Statutory Interpretation: How Much Work Does Language Do? 2011 But That Is Absurd!: Why Specific Absurdity Undermines Textualism Linda D. Jellum Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr Recommended Citation Linda D. Jellum, But That Is Absurd!: Why Specific bA surdity Undermines Textualism, 76 Brook. L. Rev. (2011). Available at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol76/iss3/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Brooklyn Law Review by an authorized editor of BrooklynWorks. But That Is Absurd! WHY SPECIFIC ABSURDITY UNDERMINES TEXTUALISM* Linda D. Jellum† INTRODUCTION With 2010 being the twenty-fifth year since Justice Scalia joined the Supreme Court and revived textualism,1 I could not resist exploring and critiquing the absurdity doctrine,2 a doctrine used by Justice Scalia and other * © 2011 Linda D. Jellum. All rights reserved. † Associate Professor of Law, Mercer University School of Law. I would like to thank Lawrence Solan, Rebecca Kysar, and the Brooklyn Law Review for inviting me to contribute to this symposium. I would also like to thank Shelia Scheuerman, Charleston Law School, and the participants in Southeastern Law Scholars Conference for offering me an opportunity to present this article while it was still a work in progress. Finally, David Ritchie and Suzianne Painter-Thorne provided valuable suggestions. -
WHAT IS TEXTUALISM? Caleb Nelson* VER the Past Two Decades
NELSONBOOK 3/18/2005 5:21 PM WHAT IS TEXTUALISM? Caleb Nelson* VER the past two decades, eminent scholars and judges have O devoted renewed attention to both the goals and the methods of statutory interpretation. In the academy, indeed, “theories of statutory interpretation have blossomed like dandelions in spring.”1 The range of theories is not quite so broad in actual American courtrooms, but judges too are of different minds about how to ap- proach statutes. One of the leading approaches, championed by Justices Scalia and Thomas on the Supreme Court and by Judge Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit, goes by the name of “textualism.” Although its advocates accept that label,2 they did not choose it; the approach was named more by critics than by adherents.3 Perhaps not surpris- * Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Research Professor, University of Virginia. I thank Barry Cushman, Earl Dudley, John Harrison, Paul Mahoney, John Manning, Tom Merrill, Tom Nachbar, Kent Olson, Jim Ryan, and workshop partici- pants at Virginia for helpful conversations and comments. 1 William N. Eskridge, Jr., Dynamic Statutory Interpretation 1 (1994). 2 See, e.g., Antonin Scalia, Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws, in A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law 3, 23 (Amy Gutmann ed., 1997); Herrmann v. Cencom Cable Assocs., 978 F.2d 978, 982–83 (7th Cir. 1992) (Easter- brook, J.). 3 The earliest usage of “textualism” reported by the Oxford English Dictionary comes from 1863, when an author used the term to criticize Puritan theology. -
The Role of Textualism in the Progressive Toolbox
TRACZ (DO NOT DELETE) 4/27/2021 11:15 PM WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS: THE ROLE OF TEXTUALISM IN THE PROGRESSIVE TOOLBOX BY ELIOT T. TRACZ* I.INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 353 II.TEXTUALISM ........................................................................................................ 355 A. Textualism ............................................................................................. 355 i. Legislative intent ......................................................................... 355 ii. Textualism ...................................................................................... 358 B. Words and Their Meanings ............................................................ 359 C. Canons of Construction- What happens when the text is vague? ..................................................................................................... 361 D. Some Criticisms ................................................................................... 364 III.TEXTUALISM AS BIG “C” OR LITTLE “C” CONSERVATIVE ............ 365 IV.TEXTUALISM AS A PROGRESSIVE TOOL ............................................... 369 A. Past Examples of Textualism Helping a Progressive Agenda 370 B. Future Areas Where Textualism Can Support Progressive 371 i. Commonsense Gun Reform ..................................................... 371 ii. Qualified Immunity ..................................................................... 374 V. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... -
Which Textualism?
COMMENTS WHICH TEXTUALISM? Tara Leigh Grove ∗ INTRODUCTION The academic indictment of textualism was almost in. Although textualism has in recent decades gained considerable prominence within the federal judiciary,1 legal scholars remain skeptical: critics argue that textualism is insensitive to the actual workings of Congress,2 overly rigid,3 or (conversely) overly malleable4 and thus not much different from its main competitor purposivism.5 Moreover, some critics charge that textualism is not a neutral method of interpretation at all. Instead, ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ∗ Charles E. Tweedy, Jr., Endowed Chairholder of Law & Director, Program in Constitutional Studies, University of Alabama School of Law. Many thanks, for helpful comments on earlier drafts, to Josh Blackman, Sam Bray, Aaron Bruhl, Jessica Clarke, Neal Devins, Heather Elliott, Katie Eyer, Richard Fallon, David Fontana, Cary Franklin, Laura Heymann, Bert Huang, Orin Kerr, Andy Koppelman, Anita Krishnakumar, Alli Larsen, Gary Lawson, Henry Monaghan, Victoria Nourse, Jim Pfander, Susan Provenzano, William Pryor, Richard Re, Naomi Schoenbaum, Larry Solum, Kevin Stack, and Chris Walker. 1 Justice Kagan commented several years ago that “w[e are] all textualists now.” Harvard Law School, The 2015 Scalia Lecture | A Dialogue with Justice Elena Kagan on the Reading of Statutes, YOUTUBE at 08:28 (Nov. 25, 2015), https://youtu.be/dpEtszFT0Tg [https://perma.cc/6HMD- 727M]. Although that may be an exaggeration, Justice Kagan’s comment captures how the rise of modern textualism has impacted the way that judges approach cases. See Thomas R. Lee & Stephen C. Mouritsen, Judging Ordinary Meaning, 127 YALE L.J. 788, 793 (2018) (underscoring the influence of textualism in the courts); Gillian E.