Stephanie Collins and David Tan, ‘Legislative Intent and Agency: A Rational Unity Account’, 44 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 231 (2024). Intentionalism in contemporary legal interpretation is unloved, at least in my United States. Textualists, purposivists, and dynamic interpreters disagree on much, but they tend to agree that any rich form of legislative intent is not a proper – or even possible – quarry for readers pursuing a statute’s legal meaning. At most, they will concede that legislative authors have the minimal intent to make law when voting on the authoritative text. Yet a moment’s reflection raises worries about this consensus. Intentionalist legal and literary theorists contend, with plausibility, that all texts presuppose a communicating author; that is why you regard what you see on your screen as words, rather than stray marks that happen to fall into an uncannily familiar pattern … (more)
[Jeffrey Pojanowski, JOTWELL, 23 September 2025]
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