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What is Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy about?

American law schools extol democracy but teach little about its most basic institution, the Congress. Interpreting statutes is lawyers’ most basic task, but law professors rarely focus on how statutes are made. This misguided pedagogy, says Victoria Nourse, undercuts the core of legal practice. It may even threaten the continued functioning of American democracy, as contempt for the legislature becomes entrenched in legal education and judicial opinions. Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy turns a spotlight on lawyers’ and judges’ pervasive ignorance about how Congress makes law. Victoria Nourse not only offers a critique but proposes reforming the way lawyers learn how to interpret statutes by teaching legislative process. Statutes are legislative decisions, just as judicial opinions are decisions. Her approach, legislative decision theory, reverse-engineers the legislative process to simplify the task of finding Congress’s meanings when statutes are ambiguous. This theory revolutionizes how we understand legislative history―not as an attempt to produce some vague notion of legislative intent but as a surgical strike for the best evidence of democratic context. Countering the a

Who reads Misreading Law, Misreading Democracy?

Author

Victoria F. Nourse

Publisher

Harvard University, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies

Published

2016

Language

EN

ISBN

9780674974265

Category

law

Subjects

Education, History, Law

Rating

4.2 / 5 (9 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14