Staudt Presents Judging Statutes: Interpretive Regimes Today at University of Washington

Nancy C. Staudt (Washington-St. Louis) presents Judging Statutes: Interpretive Regimes (forthcoming in the Loyola-L.A. Law Review) today at the University of Washington from 3:30 - 5:00 pm PST as part of its Distinguished Scholars Series Showcasing Prominent Tax Academics and Commentators.  Here is part of the abstract:

Theories of statutory interpretation abound. Scholars, judges, and commentators have long puzzled over the best method to locate the meaning of a statute and to this end have proposed a range of approaches that rely on various forms of evidence, including statutory text, legislative intent, agency interpretations, cultural norms, and judicial precedent. These theories do not merely offer competing modes of analysis; they also create competition among federal actors for control over the law-making process. An advocate of a textualist or intentionalist reading of a statute argues for bestowing special weight on the legislature, whether its product or its process. One who supports interpreting statutes with deference to administrative rulings privileges the executive over the judicial and legislative branches in the interpretive process. And those who defend reliance on substantive canons, precedent, or broad policy considerations in effect prioritize judge-made rules and perceptions. Championing one particular theory over others, therefore, means allocating power within the federal government and for this reason we refer to each particular mode of analysis—whether textualism, intentionalism, deference, precedent, and so on—as a component of larger interpretive regime: legislative, executive, or judicial.

In this essay we do not intend to defend an extant regime; many others have done that. Nor do not seek to develop a novel understanding of statutory interpretation; others have done that as well. Rather our goal is something more modest: to provide a descriptive mapping of statutory interpretation in the business context—specifically, in disputes over the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code. To that end we analyze every tax case decided by the Supreme Court since Congress adopted the modern tax laws in 1909 with an eye toward identifying the various rationales deployed by the justices, as well assessing some commonly held beliefs about regime use over time.