Sentences with phrase «original meaning of a statute»

As a result, re-codification is most often done only as part of an overall omnibus reform of an area of law on the merits where the interest in being able to track prior interpretive caselaw and determine the original meaning of a statute enacted long ago is at its lowest.

Not exact matches

The Court, if it had wished to rely upon Jefferson to determine the true and original intent of the First Amendment, could have served themselves and the American people well by referring to Jefferson's warning to Judge William Johnson regarding the de-ter-min-ation of the original intent of a statute or a con - st - itu - tion On every question of con - struc - tion, carry ourselves back to the time when the Con - st - itu - tion was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.»

Gorsuch observed that discovery of the original meaning of the law as enacted — and of the Constitution — is not an «ideological thing,» and that all judges and justices are originalists and literalists of a sort, employing and deferring to original textual meanings, whether of a statute or of the Constitution itself.