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A Statute By Any Other Name Might Smell Less Like S.P.A.M., Or, The Congress Of The United States Grows Increasingly D.U.M.B., Chris Sagers
A Statute By Any Other Name Might Smell Less Like S.P.A.M., Or, The Congress Of The United States Grows Increasingly D.U.M.B., Chris Sagers
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
Why we name our statutes is a rarely asked and non-obvious question, but it turns out to be deeply illuminating. This essay examines one little-noticed trend in particular, which has simply exploded within the U.S. Congress during the past twenty years. What at first might seem a frivolous, innocuous, and maybe even sort of likable kind of statute name appeared perhaps three times in the entire history of the Republic before 1988. In the twenty years since, there have been nearly seventy of them. But much more important than its recent and arresting profusion will be the deeper philosophical insight …