Legislative History

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Erik Hansen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • a Legislative History of the social security protection act of 2004
    Social Science Research Network, 2009
    Co-Authors: Erik Hansen
    Abstract:

    This article discusses the Legislative History of the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 (SSPA) in detail. It includes summaries of the provisions and a chronology of the modification of these proposals as they passed through the House and Senate, and ultimately to the president's desk. With its administrative remedies and enhanced program protections, SSPA can be seen as part of the ongoing efforts to refine existing social insurance programs, ensuring a system that best meets the evolving needs of American society.

  • a Legislative History of the social security protection act of 2004
    Social Security Bulletin, 2008
    Co-Authors: Erik Hansen
    Abstract:

    Summary Passage of the original Social Security Act in 1935, Public Law (EL.) 74-271, represented one of the watershed achievements of social welfare reform in American History. For the first time, workers were guaranteed a basic floor of protection against the hardships of poverty. In the ensuing decades, more than 100 million beneficiaries have realized the value of this protection through the receipt of monthly Social Security payments. As this guarantee has endured and progressed, the policies and administration of such a vast and complex program have required ongoing modifications--more than 150 such revisions over the past 73 years. To some extent, these amendments can be seen as an ongoing refinement process, with the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 (SSPA) being another incremental step in the development of a social insurance program that best meets the evolving needs of American society. This article discusses the Legislative History of the SSPA in detail. It includes summaries of the provisions and a chronology of the modification of these proposals as they passed through the House and Senate, and ultimately to the president's desk. Introduction Rather than containing one overarching theme, SSPA (P.L. 108-203) compiles many Legislative improvements that emanated from various sources, including the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Social Security Administration (SSA). The close working relationship between Senate and House staffs while crafting the provisions proved instrumental in winning widespread support of the legislation, as it emerged--and reemerged--in Congress. House Social Security Subcommittee Chairman E. Clay Shaw (R-FL) captured this collaborative spirit during his discussion of the SSPA: This bipartisan bill does the right thing and has the support of many organizations. It was developed using recommendations from and in cooperation with the Social Security Administration and the Social Security Inspector General. It is also supported by the AARP, Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Conference of State Social Security Administrators, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Association of Administrative Law Judges, the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives, and numerous other national and local law enforcement agencies and organizations (Congressional Record [CR] 2003b, H2643). The legislation enabled a wide array of new protections, including provisions to strengthen oversight of SSA's representative payee program, prevent program misuse, reform the attorney fee process, broaden return-to-work opportunities, and simplify the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The protections ultimately provided by SSPA were developed and modified during a process that took 5 years and three Congresses to complete. The very breadth and number of these provisions--54 in all--indicate the wide scope of the legislation and the varied interests that came together as the process unfolded. 106th Congress: Initial Legislative Efforts, June 2000-December 2000 On July 13, 2000, Chairman Shaw introduced H.R. 4857, which would be titled the Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act in its final version (CR 2000, H6051). (1) Although Titles I-III of the bill provided safeguards relating to the use of Social Security account numbers in the public and private sectors, Titles IV and V contained early versions of many SSPA provisions: * Title IV provided for expanded oversight of the representative payee program and included sections on the reissuance of misused payments, bonding and licensing of organizational payees, onsite reviews, liability of payees for misused benefits, forfeiture of payments, and civil monetary penalties. This expanded payee oversight was to become one of the hallmarks, and arguably the standout protection, of SSPA. …

John Cannan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • resolving ambiguity the continued relevance of Legislative History in an era of textualism
    Social Science Research Network, 2019
    Co-Authors: John Cannan
    Abstract:

    This article argues that Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s decision in Allina Health Servs. v. Price, 863 F.3d 937 (D.C. Cir. 2017), currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, was the correct one, but only by chance. Kavanagh based his ruling on subjective textualism. Congress’ true intent for the provision at issue, 42 U.S.C. 1395hh(a)(2), can be found in Legislative History that has gone largely overlooked. This paper examines this History and shows how Legislative History, in general, should, at the very least, continue to be persuasive evidence of statutory meaning.

  • a mostly Legislative History of the defend trade secrets act of 2016
    Law Library Journal, 2017
    Co-Authors: John Cannan
    Abstract:

    This narrative of the passage of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 analyzes the law's Legislative History as its various bills moved through Congress. Unlike most traditional Legislative histories, it was prepared not after the Act passed, but contemporaneously during its passage. The goal of this analysis is to suggest how law librarians can use Legislative History preparation as part of a broader m

  • a mostly Legislative History of the defend trade secrets act of 2016
    Social Science Research Network, 2016
    Co-Authors: John Cannan
    Abstract:

    This paper provides a narrative of the passage of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 — legislation, passed by Congress in April, 2016, that establishes a federal civil cause of action for the theft of trade secrets. It analyzes the justifications for the bill, how it was drafted and passed and how Congress expressed its objectives in the law’s Legislative History source documents.

  • a Legislative History of the affordable care act how Legislative procedure shapes Legislative History
    Law Library Journal, 2013
    Co-Authors: John Cannan
    Abstract:

    Using the health care legislation passed in 2010 as a model to show how Legislative procedure shapes Legislative History, this article posits that Legislative procedure has changed, making the traditional model of the Legislative process used by law librarians and other researchers insufficient to capture the History of modern legislation. To prove this point, it follows the process through which the health care legislation was created and describes the information resources generated. The article concludes by listing resources that will give law librarians and other researchers a grounding in modern Legislative procedure and help them navigate the difficulties presented by modern lawmaking.

John F Manning - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • chevron and Legislative History
    Social Science Research Network, 2014
    Co-Authors: John F Manning
    Abstract:

    The Court's decision in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. presupposes that when Congress leaves indeterminacy in an organic act, that indeterminacy reflects an implicit delegation of power to the agency to fill in the details of statutory meaning. Accordingly, a reviewing court must accept the agency's interpretation if reasonable. At its threshold the Chevron test requires the reviewing court to use the "traditional tools of statutory construction" to determine if Congress expressed a clear intention concerning the interpretive question or, by virtue of indeterminacy, left the question for agency resolution. In the era in which it decided Chevron, the Court felt free to use Legislative History to help determine whether Congress had directly spoken to the question at issue in the case. In the years since Chevron, the Court's understanding of the "traditional tools" of statutory interpretation has changed. Contrary to its practice at the time of Chevron, the Court has made it flatly impermissible for interpreters to rely on Legislative History in a way that contradicts the text of the statute. This Article argues that the Court's new approach to Legislative History precludes the Court's use of that tool of construction to resolve indeterminacy under the Chevron doctrine. If as Chevron suggests, an administrative statute's indeterminacy presumptively reflects a Legislative intention to delegate broad policy-making discretion to the responsible agency, then the reviewing court's use of Legislative History to narrow that discretion contradicts the implemental design of the statute by narrowing the delegation effectuated by the text.

  • putting Legislative History to a vote a response to professor siegel
    Social Science Research Network, 2000
    Co-Authors: John F Manning
    Abstract:

    This paper defends the position that judicial reliance on Legislative History violates the constitutional norm against congressional self-delegation. Contrary to that position, Professor Jonathon Siegel argues that, because a statute's Legislative History already exists at the time of the statute's passage, a court’s treating Legislative History as authoritative is the same as giving effect to a statute that validly incorporates pre-existing materials by reference. To illustrate this point, Professor Siegel introduces, as a thought experiment, a hypothetical Interpretation of Statutes Act. The Act provides that the Legislative History of every future statute will be automatically incorporated into the statute by reference, without express adoption. Siegel argues that, because legislatures are permitted to incorporate, by reference, pre-enactment Legislative History into statutes, such an Act would be constitutional. Disagreeing with that conclusion, this paper argues that the hypothetical Interpretation of Statutes Act would only formalize an unconstitutional delegation of power. The essay explains that the hypothetical statutory arrangement allows members of Congress to subvert the aims of bicameralism and presentment. In particular, legislators would be able to vote for a statute without taking full responsibility for Legislative History that resulted from factional logrolling. The paper concludes that the resulting separation of legislator responsibility from Legislative result (viz. the statutory text) enables Congress to enact binding statutory details through a process other than the one prescribed by the Constitution.

  • putting Legislative History to a vote a response to professor siegel
    Vanderbilt Law Review, 2000
    Co-Authors: John F Manning
    Abstract:

    I. INTRODUCTION In a previous article, I argued that, properly understood, textualism implements a special form of the nondelegation doctrine, one that prohibits Legislative self-delegation.1 If the judiciary accepts certain types of Legislative History (committee reports and sponsors' statements) as "authoritative" evidence of Legislative intent in cases of ambiguity, then the particular legislators who write that History (the committees and sponsors) effectively settle statutory meaning for Congress as a whole.2 Against the background of such a judicially fashioned interpretive practice,3 when Congress passes a vague or ambiguous statute, it thereby implicitly delegates its law-elaboration authority to Legislative agents, who effectively fashion the details of meaning outside the enacted text.4 As a result, rank-and-file members of the majority can vote for the statute without having to vote (and thereby assume responsibility) for the details authoritatively elaborated by their agents.5 Much existing Supreme Court case law suggests precisely this result.6 But I find it problematic. In particular, I have argued that the Court's separation-ofpowers case law powerfully undermines any approach to Legislative History that generally treats it as authoritative.7 Although the Court routinely sustains Legislative delegations of law-elaboration authority to other branches,8 it has strictly barred Congress from delegating such authority to its own agents, noting that selfdelegation poses too great a threat to the constitutionally prescribed process of bicameralism and presentment.9 The reason is this: when Congress enacts a vague statute and leaves it to an agency or court to fill in the details, it consciously cedes potentially significant policymaking discretion to a different branch of government.10 This fact provides a built-in structural incentive for Congress itself to specify important federal statutory policy.11 If, however, Congress can delegate law-elaboration authority to its own agents (committees or bill sponsors), that structural incentive is lost, and the constitutional values embodied in the process of bicameralism and presentment are more readily compromised.12 Hence, the Court has made clear that Congress as a whole must either formulate the statutory details itself (through the procedures prescribed by Article I, Section 7) or assign law-elaboration authority to a separate governmental branch.13 Under these premises, judicial treatment of Legislative History as authoritative is problematic precisely because it enables Congress to engage in constitutionally prohibited self-delegation.14 In a characteristically thoughtful article published in this volume, Professor Jonathan Siegel challenges the applicability of the general constitutional rule against Legislative self-delegation to judicial reliance on Legislative History to fix statutory meaning.15 Although acknowledging the importance of that structural norm (as well as carefully elaborating some of its important implications),16 Professor Siegel questions whether the judicial use of most Legislative History implicates that norm at all. His argument rests upon three premises. First, Congress can validly incorporate pre-existing materials by reference.17 Such action is not a form of "delegation" because Congress, in effect, votes for the existing materials when it votes for the statute.18 Second, Congress can and does pass interpretation acts prescribing generic rules of construction to govern future enactments.19 Third, and of most interest here, Congress could find "a fairly easy escape" from self-delegation concerns by passing what Siegel calls the "Interpretation of Statutes Act of 2000."20 This hypothetical act would prescribe a generic rule of construction consisting of two parts: (1) it would provide that the Legislative History of every future statute is automatically incorporated by reference (without express adoption); and (2) it would instruct courts to "give such weight to the [incorporated] Legislative History . …

James J Brudney - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the story of pepper v hart examining Legislative History across the pond
    Social Science Research Network, 2010
    Co-Authors: James J Brudney
    Abstract:

    Pepper v. Hart transformed the way judges and lawyers in Britain approach statutory interpretation by overruling more than 200 years of precedent and allowing courts to consult Legislative History when construing enacted laws. The case involved teachers at a private school whose children were educated at one-fifth the fees charged to parents of other students. The question was how that employee benefit should be valued for income tax purposes under an ambiguously worded statute. The 1992 decision by the Law Lords (Britain’s highest court), relying heavily on Legislative History, drew sharp academic criticism and triggered spirited debate among leading members of the judiciary. Eighteen years later, the rule of Pepper v. Hart survives relatively intact. Professor James J. Brudney makes use of lower court decisions, parliamentary materials, contemporary media accounts, and interviews with key participants to present the story of the case in depth. The chapter then assesses subsequent developments in the Law Lords and explains why - based on differences in Legislative process and structure - the U.S. Supreme Court continues to rely on Legislative History more often than do the Law Lords. The story of Pepper v. Hart offers important lessons for ongoing U.S. practice. The British Legislative-History debate since 1992, involving issues of weight rather than admissibility, has been enlightening and productive when contrasted with the indeterminate disagreements over “pure textualism” that have characterized federal judicial approaches for twenty-five years. As the Law Lords have come to appreciate, Legislative History is valuable as a selectively invoked resource - both to clarify ambiguous statutes in ways that further the design of Parliament and as a confirmatory aid to reinforce textual construction.

  • liberal justices reliance on Legislative History principle strategy and the scalia effect
    Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 2007
    Co-Authors: James J Brudney, Corey Ditslear
    Abstract:

    for “Liberal Justices’ Reliance on Legislative History: Principle, Strategy, and the Scalia Effect” This article conducts an in-depth examination of Supreme Court Justices’ reliance on Legislative History during the Burger, Rehnquist, and early Roberts eras. In doing so, it makes two important contributions to current statutory interpretation debates. First, the article presents a powerful case against the conventional wisdom that Legislative History is a “politicized” resource, invoked opportunistically by federal judges. The premise that judges regularly rely on Legislative History to promote their preferred policy positions—if true—should find ample support in the majority opinions of liberal Supreme Court Justices construing liberal (pro-employee) labor and civil rights statutes. By analyzing all 320-plus majority opinions in workplace law authored by eight liberal Justices from 1969-2006, the authors establish that Legislative History reliance is actually associated with a constraining set of results. When these eight liberals use Legislative History as part of their majority reasoning, they do so to justify a higher proportion of their pro-employer outcomes than their pro-employee decisions. The authors then review individual majority opinions to demonstrate how this surprising pattern of reliance is based on neutral doctrinal considerations. Liberal Justices use Legislative History to illuminate the existence and contours of complex statutory bargains that often favor conservative or pro-employer positions. The authors consider alternative explanations, premised on the institutional factor of who assigns majority opinions and also the instrumental possibility that liberals withhold use of Legislative History in “minor” cases to enhance its value in more important decisions. They conclude, however, that Justices Brennan, Marshall, Souter, Stevens, and others are willing to follow so frequently a Legislative History trail leading away from their presumed ideological preferences mainly because they have invoked this interpretive resource in principled fashion. The article’s second major contribution is to identify and analyze the Scalia Effect that has arisen with respect to liberal Justices’ use of Legislative History since 1986. In the face of Justice Scalia’s fervently expressed opposition to Legislative History, liberal Justices have opted not to rely on that resource in a series of pro-employer majorities that Scalia joins. One result of the liberals’ strategic restraint is to make their use of Legislative History in remaining (mostly proemployee) majority opinions appear more ideological than was true before Scalia joined the Court. The authors also show that liberal justices have special reasons for acting strategically in this regard. When liberals rely on Legislative History, Justice Scalia is significantly less likely to join their majority opinions even when he votes on their side; he also is significantly less likely to vote for the majority result when these liberals rely on Legislative History than when they do not. Intriguingly, Justice Scalia’s strong resistance to Legislative History usage does not extend to majorities authored by his conservative colleagues. Scalia seems prepared to give these conservative colleagues a free ride: he is every bit as likely to join their majorities, or vote for their results, when they rely on Legislative History as when they do not.

  • below the surface comparing Legislative History usage by the house of lords and the supreme court
    Washington University Law Review, 2007
    Co-Authors: James J Brudney
    Abstract:

    In 1992, the Law Lords (the judicial arm of the House of Lords) overruled more than two centuries of precedent when it decided in Pepper v. Hart that courts could refer to and rely on Legislative History to aid in construing enacted laws. The ensuing fourteen years have witnessed a robust debate among British judges and legal scholars as to the scope and propriety of Pepper. This article offers the first empirical and comparative analysis of how Britain’s highest court has used previously excluded Legislative History materials in its judicial decisions.

  • below the surface comparing Legislative History usage by the house of lords and the supreme court
    Social Science Research Network, 2006
    Co-Authors: James J Brudney
    Abstract:

    In 1992, the Law Lords (the judicial arm of the House of Lords) overruled more than two centuries of precedent when it decided in Pepper v. Hart that courts could refer to and rely on Legislative History to aid in construing enacted laws. The ensuing fourteen years have witnessed a robust debate among British judges and legal scholars as to the scope and propriety of Pepper. This article offers the first empirical and comparative analysis of how Britain's highest court has used previously excluded Legislative History materials in its judicial decisions. Although the Law Lords opened the door to reliance on Legislative History at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has been clamping down on such usage, the article demonstrates that citation to parliamentary materials by the Law Lords since 1996 does not approach the levels of reliance on congressional materials currently practiced by the Supreme Court. Notwithstanding Justice Scalia's appreciable influence, Supreme Court justices continue to make use of Legislative History in their opinions between three and five times more often than their counterparts in Britain. The article accounts for this divergent pattern of U.S. and British usage based on certain key differences in their respective lawmaking processes and structures — notably the disparate roles played by standing committees, the varying importance of Legislative bargains following bill introduction, and the breadth of Legislative History sources available under each system. Still, despite a spirited reaction to Pepper by several judges on the Law Lords, references to Legislative History have increased since 2000. Moreover, the Law Lords in two very recent decisions have gone beyond Pepper in setting forth grounds for relying on parliamentary materials. The article predicts that Britain's highest court is in the process of consolidating if not augmenting a permanent role for Legislative History as an interpretive asset. The article then suggests how this development should invite a different kind of dialogue about Legislative History among justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.

David S Law - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • law versus ideology the supreme court and the use of Legislative History
    William and Mary law review, 2010
    Co-Authors: David S Law, David Zaring
    Abstract:

    ABSTRACT Much of the social science literature on judicial behavior has focused on the impact of ideology on how judges vote. For the most part, however, legal scholars have been reluctant to embrace empirical scholarship that fails to address the impact of legal constraints and the means by which judges reason their way to particular outcomes. This Article attempts to integrate and address the concerns of both audiences by way of an empirical examination of the Supreme Court's use of a particular interpretive technique--namely, the use of Legislative History to determine the purpose and meaning of a statute. We analyzed every opinion in every Supreme Court statutory interpretation case from 1953 through 2006 that involved a frequently interpreted federal statute. We also collected original data on the characteristics of each statute, including its age, length, complexity, obscurity, and the number of times that it had been amended. We then used our data on these statutory characteristics--together with information on the ideological tilt of the Justices, the case outcomes, and the legislators who enacted the statute--in a logit regression analysis to determine the relative impact of each variable on the likelihood that a Justice would cite Legislative History in a given opinion. We find that the use of Legislative History is driven by a combination of legal and ideological factors. On the whole, the legal variables have a significantly larger impact on the likelihood of Legislative History usage than the ideological variables, but the impact of the ideological variables cannot be dismissed. Statutes that are longer or more complex increase the likelihood of Legislative History usage, whereas frequent amendment of a statute decreases that likelihood. The age of the statute also matters, but its effect is neither linear nor monotonic: very new and very old statutes are more likely to elicit Legislative History usage than statutes of intermediate age. Majority opinions are significantly more likely to cite Legislative History than dissenting opinions, which in turn are more than twice as likely to cite Legislative History as concurring opinions. Our findings also suggest that the use of Legislative History by one Justice prompts other Justices to respond in kind with Legislative History arguments of their own. We found no evidence, however, that the Court's adoption in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council of the doctrine that reviewing courts should defer to reasonable agency interpretations affected the overall propensity of the Justices to cite Legislative History. With respect to the impact of ideological factors, liberal Justices are generally more likely than conservative Justices to cite Legislative History. In addition, the Justices are more likely to consult Legislative History when they are ideologically sympathetic to the purposes of the enacting Congress. At the same time, however, Legislative History usage is not correlated with more ideological decision making. Although the decision to use Legislative History is influenced by ideological factors, the actual use of Legislative History does not make it more likely that a Justice will arrive at his or her preferred outcome. Moreover, contrary to what some scholars have suggested, we also found no evidence that Justice Scalia has persuaded other Justices to refrain from citing Legislative History in their own opinions. Rather, the decline in the overall use of Legislative History since the mid-1980s reflects a rightward shift in the ideological composition of the Court, as liberal Justices who were inclined to cite Legislative History have been replaced by conservative Justices who are not so inclined. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE NORMATIVE DEBATE OVER THE USE OF Legislative History II. THE STATE OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE A. Trends in the Supreme Court's Usage of Legislative History over Time B. …

  • law versus ideology the supreme court and the use of Legislative History
    Social Science Research Network, 2010
    Co-Authors: David S Law, David Zaring
    Abstract:

    Much of the social science literature on judicial behavior has focused on the impact of ideology on how judges vote. For the most part, however, legal scholars have been reluctant to embrace empirical scholarship that fails to address the impact of legal constraints and the means by which judges reason their way to particular outcomes. This Article attempts to integrate and address the concerns of both audiences by way of an empirical examination of the Supreme Court’s use of a particular interpretive technique – namely, the use of Legislative History to determine the purpose and meaning of a statute. We analyzed every opinion in every Supreme Court statutory interpretation case from 1953 through 2006 that involved a frequently interpreted federal statute. We also collected original data on the characteristics of each statute, including its age, length, complexity, obscurity, and the number of times that it had been amended. We then used our data on these statutory characteristics - together with information on the ideological tilt of the justices, the case outcomes, and the legislators who enacted the statute - in a logit regression analysis to determine the relative impact of each variable on the likelihood that a justice would cite Legislative History in a given opinion. We find overall that the use of Legislative History is driven by a combination of legal and ideological factors. On the whole, the legal variables have a significantly larger impact on the likelihood of Legislative History usage than the ideological variables, but the impact of the ideological variables cannot be dismissed. Statutes that are longer or more complex increase the likelihood of Legislative History usage, whereas frequent amendment of a statute decreases that likelihood. The age of the statute also matters, but its effect is neither linear nor monotonic: very new and very old statutes are more likely to elicit Legislative History usage than statutes of intermediate age. Majority opinions are significantly more likely to cite Legislative History than dissenting opinions, which are in turn more than twice as likely to cite Legislative History as concurring opinions. Our findings also suggest that the use of Legislative History by one justice prompts other justices to respond in kind with Legislative History arguments of their own. We found no evidence, however, that the Court’s adoption in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council of the doctrine that reviewing courts should defer to reasonable agency interpretations affected the overall propensity of the justices to cite Legislative History. With respect to the impact of ideological factors, liberal justices are generally more likely than conservative justices to cite Legislative History. In addition, the justices are more likely to consult Legislative History when they are ideologically sympathetic to the purposes of the enacting Congress. At the same time, however, Legislative History usage is not correlated with more ideological decision making. Although the decision to use Legislative History is influenced by ideological factors, the actual use of Legislative History does not make it more likely that a justice will arrive at his or her ideologically preferred outcome. Moreover, contrary to what some scholars have suggested, we also found no evidence that Justice Scalia has persuaded other justices to refrain from citing Legislative History in their own opinions. Rather, the decline in the overall use of Legislative History since the mid-1980s reflects a rightward shift in the ideological composition of the Court, as liberal justices who were inclined to cite Legislative History have been replaced by conservative justices who are not inclined to do so.

  • why supreme court justices cite Legislative History an empirical investigation
    Social Science Research Network, 2008
    Co-Authors: David S Law, David Zaring
    Abstract:

    Much of the political science literature on judicial behavior has focused on the impact of ideology on how judges vote. Legal scholars, however, have been slow to embrace empirical scholarship that fails to emphasize the impact of legal constraints and the means by which judges reason their way to particular outcomes. This paper attempts to integrate and address the concerns of both audiences by way of an empirical examination of the Supreme Court's use of a particular interpretive technique - namely, the use of Legislative History to determine the purpose and meaning of a statute. We examine all Supreme Court opinions decided from the 1953 through 2006 terms involving frequently interpreted federal statutes. These statutes varied in their formal legal characteristics, such as age, length, obscurity, and the extent to which they had been amended. We use logit regression analysis to evaluate the impact of these formal characteristics, as well as ideological characteristics of judges and their opinions, on the likelihood that a justice will resort in a given opinion to the use of Legislative History. Our results suggest that a combination of legal and ideological factors best explains how and why justices on the modern Supreme Court have employed this interpretive technique.