A 2013 Stanford Law Review study co-authored by Lisa Bressman, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Vanderbilt Law School, with Abbe Gluck of Yale Law School was cited by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in her concurrence in Biden v. Nebraska.
Justice Barrett cited the study, “Statutory Interpretation from the Inside: An Empirical Study of Congressional Drafting, Delegation, and the Canons, Part 1,” in her concurrence, in which she addresses how the major questions doctrine should be applied in interpreting the text of a statute.
The authors reported the results of their empirical survey of 137 congressional counsels drawn from both parties, both chambers of Congress, and spanning multiple committees, in two journal articles published by the Stanford Law Review in 2013 and 2014. Their stated goal was to address the question: “What role should the realities of the legislative drafting process play in the theories and doctrines of statutory interpretation and administrative law?”
