The possible value of legislative declarations in statutory interpretation

While textualists want to only focus on the actual text of the statute, the purpose of statutory interpretation, in my opinion, is to ascertain the intent of the Legislature, which is charged with the lawmaking function. While the judicial branch is charged with interpreting the law, how best should they interpret those laws? From my perspective, it is important to determine what the Legislature was trying to accomplish even if the language is not clear.

So, how best can the judiciary do that? The courts should consult legislative materials. Yes, there are shortcomings in those documents. But they should be consulted nonetheless. And those documents should include codified or uncodified legislative findings and declarations and legislative intent statements.

Those findings and declarations are used by the Legislature to provide justification or the basis for their legislative enactment. These are often fact-based statements, some even with citations to a study or relevant data. They are often found in the first section of a bill, which may or may not be codified. Regardless, they are still part of the statute.

Those findings and declarations are often followed by legislative intent statements. These statements are focused on expressions of the purpose or desired outcome for the statutory enactment. These statements, too, represent valuable insights into what the Legislature was trying to accomplish when it enacted the statute.

In addition, because those provisions are part of the bill itself (as opposed to other legislative documents including bill analyses and legislator statements), they can be attributed to the Legislature as a whole.

I understand that the judiciary usually views these general statements of legislative intent to be of limited value to the courts. For example, a recent California appellate court decision stated: “Legislative findings and statements of purpose in a statute’s preamble can be illuminating if a statute is ambiguous. But a preamble is not binding in the interpretation of the statute. Moreover, the preamble may not overturn the statute’s language.”

In other words, there first must be ambiguity in the statutory language in order for a court to even refer to these intent statements. Assuming there is, the second problem is that these intent statements often do shed light directly on how to properly interpret the ambiguous language. If these legislative statements are going to be utilized by the courts as “an aid in construing a statute,” then these statements should be directed at the actual statutory language.

This leads me to the proposal at the outset of this article: Include interpretive guidance in California legislative documents so that the courts do not have to try and use generalized intent statements to try and ascertain what ambiguous statutory language actually means. Let’s start with an example of the problem and how this solution could work:

A bill is proposed to create a tax credit for hiring disadvantaged workers might include an intent statement such as, “It is the intent of the Legislature to assist workers facing barriers to employment by offering a tax credit to businesses for hiring these types of individuals.” Intent statements might also include relevant statistics about limited hiring opportunities for disadvantaged workers, such as ex-felons, for example.

The problem that I have seen is that we already know what the general intent is behind such a bill proposal. In other words, how helpful are those intent statements really to aiding statutory interpretation? I would suggest that they are not of great value, which is why they are often ignored by the judiciary.

A legal dispute, such as between a taxpayer and the tax agency, is not going to benefit from those generalized statements of intent. And a court trying to resolve the dispute between the taxpayer and the tax agency will not likely benefit from those intent statements either.

Why? Because a legal dispute involving this hypothetical tax credit is going to be over issues such as: Is this taxpayer entitled to claim the credit? Did the individual hired qualify under one of the specified categories of worker? Understanding why specific statutory language was or was not chosen for this tax credit probably will not hinge on why the tax credit was created.

Rather, the issues giving rise to a legal dispute would probably be, for example, whether a particular business could claim the tax credit or whether a particular worker qualified the business to claim the tax credit. So, again, how do generalized statements of intent assist a court of law in interpreting possibly ambiguous statutory language? They probably do not.

In my opinion, these generalized statements of intent really do not serve as an aid to the courts or to executive branch agencies in interpreting the Legislature’s enacted statutory language. So, what do I suggest? I think California legislation, in bill analyses, or perhaps even in legislation itself, that interpretive guidance be included. What does this actually mean?

How would this look? Legislative committee analyses would include a sentence or two to explain the provisions of the bill that are adding new code sections or amending existing code sections. The purpose of this sentence or two would be a brief explanation of what is intended with these new or changed statutory provisions.

For example, in my hypothetical, “the Legislature intends that these types of (specified) businesses qualify for the hiring tax credit, but not these (specified) businesses.” Or there could be included: “The Legislature considered including all felons as a qualifying category for this hiring credit, but decided that it is only for felons convicted under (specified) circumstances.”

Yes, I recognize this would require lots more work for committee consultants. And, it would require active engagement and discussion among the committee’s legislative members. But that could be accomplished if there were a sizeable reduction in the bill introduction limits in the California Legislature, and if legislative committees took on the role (with a vastly reduced quantity of bills considered at their hearings) of actually reviewing and debating the proposed statutory language contained in bills.

Courts do consider legislative history when interpreting ambiguous statutes. As a result, the Legislature should provide robust historical items that can be used by the judiciary. Legislative history can take many different forms and courts may prioritize those forms.

Support for The Micheli Files is provided by The McGeorge School of Law Capital Center for Law & Policy.