Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy

American law schools extol democracy but teach little about its most basic institution, the Congress. Interpreting statutes is lawyers’ most basic task, but law professors rarely focus on how statutes are made. This misguided pedagogy, says Victoria Nourse, undercuts the core of legal practice. It may even threaten the continued functioning of American democracy, as contempt for the legislature becomes entrenched in legal education and judicial opinions. Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy turns a spotlight on lawyers’ and judges’ pervasive ignorance about how Congress makes law. Victoria Nourse not only offers a critique but proposes reforming the way lawyers learn how to interpret statutes by teaching legislative process. Statutes are legislative decisions, just as judicial opinions are decisions. Her approach, legislative decision theory, reverse-engineers the legislative process to simplify the task of finding Congress’s meanings when statutes are ambiguous. This theory revolutionizes how we understand legislative history—not as an attempt to produce some vague notion of legislative intent but as a surgical strike for the best evidence of democratic context. Countering the academic view that the legislative process is irrational and unseemly, Nourse makes a forceful argument that lawyers must be educated about the basic procedures that define how Congress operates today. Lawmaking is a sequential process with political winners and losers. If lawyers and judges do not understand this, they may well embrace the meanings of those who opposed legislation rather than those who supported it, making legislative losers into judicial winners, and standing democracy on its head. "Hating Congress but loving Democracy is a national passion. For those who apply law, whether lawyers or judges, it is an oxymoronic luxury neither can afford. One of the dirty secrets of the legal academy is that it teaches almost nothing to lawyers about how law is made in Congress. The results of this ignorance can be perverse and anti-democratic. No lawyer would confuse a dissenting judicial opinion with a majority opinion, but somehow lawyers and judges in famous cases have unwittingly confused the meanings of legislative losers and winners. For those lawyers and judges who have declared that reverting to Congress's records is shameful and unconstitutional, this book provides a powerful antidote. Lawyers may hate Congress but Congress by another name is democracy, and without understanding how it works, lawyers will unwittingly find themselves participating in an interpretive endeavor that celebrates those who have lost over those who have won the legislative debate"-- Provided by publisher Contents Prologue: The Paradox of American Civic Illiteracy 1. Congress Is Not a Court 2. Statutory Interpretation Theories Misunderstand Congress 3. A Legislative Decision Theory of Statutory Interpretation 4. Petty Textualism, Canons, and Cognitive Bias 5. What Is Legislative Intent? Evidence of Context 6. The Constitutional Argument for Legislative Evidence Epilogue: Courts and Congress as Faithful Agents of Democracy Notes Acknowledgments Index Victoria Nourse argues that lawyers must be educated on the basic procedures that define how Congress operates today. Lawmaking creates winners and losers. If lawyers and judges do not understand this, they may embrace the meanings of those who opposed legislation, turning legislative losers into judicial winners and standing democracy on its head.