Abstract

Interpretive methodology changes over time, and we appear to be in a period of particular ferment. In federal statutory interpretation, which is the focus of this Article, several important changes in interpretive methods have occurred in recent decades or are underway. There has been a gradual, decades-long shift away from intentionalist tools like legislative history. In addition, as the culmination of a series of smaller steps, the Supreme Court has just reshaped the doctrine governing deference to agency interpretations, a move that will require years of further clarification. And, although this shift is still taking shape, it appears that some Justices are attempting to reconfigure the toolkit of substantive canons.

Much is being written about whether these changes in interpretive methods are normatively desirable, but this Article instead addresses the less studied matters of how interpretive regimes change and how the Supreme Court makes and manages change in the interpretive regime. I refer to “managing” change because one lesson is that the Supreme Court is not the sole participant in interpretive change, as change also involves the lower courts, litigants, and the broader legal culture.

The Article provides several case studies of past and present changes in methods of statutory interpretation and analyzes the mechanisms through which courts bring about or control change, laying out the mechanisms’ various strengths and weaknesses. The Article also presents several prudential considerations that would-be regime changers have to confront. Even taking the Court’s desire for regime change as a given, these considerations suggest that the Court should pay more attention to the operations of the lower courts, should attend to doctrinal interactions, and should not go so fast that it cannot learn from the effects of its decisions.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Publication Information

103 North Carolina Law Review 1083-1141 (2025)

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