Academic

Which Justices on the Supreme Court Use Legislative History?

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

In the big business cases (one overview here), it will be interesting to see how often the justices reach for the interpretive tool of legislative history.  They will, after all, be interpreting "honest services" fraud, "business method" patents, and what Congress was thinking when it created PCAOB.  You could discern that by looking only at the statute, or you could look to the larger legislative record.  In a paper I'm doing with David Law, we've taken a look at how often the justices have looked at the Congressional record for most of the frequently-seen statutes.  Based on the data we collected, here's one purely descriptive graphic way to look at the Court's practice (it's an early take, so don't hold us to it):

Full post as published by Conglomerate on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).