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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Whiskey, Soldiers, And Voting: Western Virginia Elections In The 1790s, Jud Campbell
Whiskey, Soldiers, And Voting: Western Virginia Elections In The 1790s, Jud Campbell
Law Faculty Publications
Editor's Note: Elections in eighteenth-century Virginia were conducted quite differently than current elections. In this article, the author presents revealing descriptions of early elections in Montgomery County, Virginia immediately following the birth of the United States. The behavior and motivations of the electorate, as well as the candidates, provide interesting insight regarding the social structure o/that era.
Misunderstanding Congress: Statutory Interpretation, The Supermajoritarian Difficulty, And The Separation Of Powers, Victoria Nourse
Misunderstanding Congress: Statutory Interpretation, The Supermajoritarian Difficulty, And The Separation Of Powers, Victoria Nourse
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Every lawyer's theory of statutory interpretation carries with it an idea of Congress, and every idea of Congress, in turn, carries with it an idea of the separation of powers. In this article, the author critiques three dominant academic theories of statutory interpretation--textualism, purposivism, and game theory--for their assumptions about Congress and the separation of powers. She argues that each academic theory fails to account for Congress's dominant institutional features: "the electoral connection," the "supermajoritarian difficulty," and the "principle of structure-induced ambiguity." This critique yields surprising conclusions, rejecting both standard liberal and conservative views on statutory interpretation.
"Plain" meaning, it …