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Modern Statutes, Loose Canons, And The Limits Of Practical Reason: A Response To Farber And Ross, Edward L. Rubin

Vanderbilt Law Review

Daniel Farber' and Stephen Ross, in separate contributions to this Symposium, raise the most crucial question in modern statutory interpretation, a question that exposes the profound triviality of the canons of statutory construction that Karl Llewellyn so effectively attacked. Ross points out that the legislature can control, or at least attempt to control, the judicial use of the canons by the way it drafts the statute and by effective use of supplementary materials such as mark-ups, committee reports, and floor debates. Farber, in his critique of formalism, demonstrates that formalist interpretation is an impediment to effective statutory drafting. Inherent in …