Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court pose during their formal group photograph in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Nov, 30, 2018. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
“We are all textualists now,” declared Justice Elena Kagan in a November 2015 lecture in honor of Justice Antonin Scalia, who would unexpectedly die just three months later. Was she serious or just speaking well of a colleague?
I do not have the answer, but I have some thoughts based on more than 30 years of arguing statutory-interpretation cases and two briefs I have worked on in cases the U.S. Supreme Court will hear this fall. The court’s answer may shape statutory interpretation for decades to come.
