Authorities on Reference to Parliamentary debates

Leading Authorities on Reference to pariamentary debates

1. The Supreme Court has cautioned against construing a statute literally where the clause in question was added on the Senate floor and the legislative history gave no indication that Congress intended the broad reading the plain language would indicate.[1]

2. Reliance on congressional floor debate is unpersuasive. The perils of relying on that source for interpreting statutory language are well-known.[2]

3. A historical analysis normally provides less guidance to a statute's meaning than its final text. In the ordinary case, absent any "indication that doing so would frustrate Congress's clear intention or yield patent absurdity, our obligation is to apply the statute as Congress wrote it.[3]"

4. "Te legislative history of a statute that does not expressly create or deny a private remedy will typically be equally silent or ambiguous on the question.[4]"

5. The legislative history of the statute leaves little if any doubt that this understanding is correct[5].

6. Reliance on silence in the history is a new and even more dangerous phenomenon.[6]

7. The courts may, in some circumstances may not put reliance on the legislative history and in Sigmon Coal, [7]for example, the Court declined to rely on legislative history to displace the plain meaning of the statute, because the history consisted merely of a statement made by a single member of Congress. 226 F.3d at 306. Although such legislative history was "worthy of consideration, [it was] simply not the sort of conclusive legislative history that would trump contrary language in the statute."

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[1] See Am. Trucking Ass'ns, 310 U.S. at 546-48, 60 S.Ct. 1059

[2] See, e.g., Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U.S. 438, 457 n. 15, 122 S.Ct. 941, 151 L.Ed.2d 908 (2002).

[3] BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp., 511 U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 1757, 1778, 128 L.Ed.2d 556 (1994) (SOUTER, J., dissenting).

[4] Cannon v. University of Chicago, [1979] USSC 85; 441 U.S. 677, 694[1979] USSC 85; , 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1956, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

[5] Griffin v Oceanic Contractors, Inc [1982] USSC 159; 458 U.S. 564; 102 S.Ct. 3245; 73 L.Ed.2d 973;No. 81-614 (30 June 1982)

[6] Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc. v. Nigh, [2004] USSC 5842; 543 U.S. 50, 73 (2004) (SCALIA, J., dissenting) (criticizing the Court's novel "Canon of Canine Silence")

[7] Sigmon Coal[supra]

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