concluding that the three-readings requirement in the United States Constitution is “intended . . . to make sure that each House knows what it is passing and passes what it wants”
How later courts described this case
- concluding that the three-readings requirement in the United States Constitution is “intended . . . to make sure that each House knows what it is passing and passes what it wants”
- noting that “doubts of the opposition” do not guide “the construction of legislation”
- invalidating Louisiana law providing that buyer would not resell except at price stipulated by vendor
- construing a statute to reflect “continuity” between the Senate bill ultimately enacted and prior draft legislation
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Rothbaum v. R. H. Macy & Co., 203 Misc. 1082 (1952)
Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Corp. (341 U. S. 384) is distinguishable from the case at bar on its facts, for there an interstate marketing arrangement was involved.
Distinguished by Jacobson Bros. Exquisite Footwear, Inc. v. Relda Fine Shoes, Inc., 199 Misc. 820 (1951)
Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp. (341 U. S. 384) is clearly distinguishable.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Jackson,
whom Mr. Justice Minton joins, concurring.
I agree with the Court’s judgment and with its opinion insofar as it rests upon the language of the Miller-Tydings Act. But it does not appear that there is either necessity or propriety in going back of it into legislative history.
Resort to legislative history is only justified where the face of the Act is inescapably ambiguous, and then I think we should not go beyond Committee reports, which presumably are well considered and carefully prepared. *396 I cannot deny that I have sometimes offended against that rule. But to select casual statements from floor debates, not always distinguished for candor or accuracy, as a basis for making up our minds what law Congress intended to enact is to substitute ourselves for the Congress in one of its important functions. The Rules of the House and Senate, with the sanction of the Constitution, require three readings of an Act in each House before final enactment. That is intended, I take it, to make sure that each House knows what it is passing and passes what it wants, and that what is enacted was formally reduced to writing. It is the business of Congress to sum up its own debates in its legislation. Moreover, it is only the words of the bill that have presidential approval, where that approval is given. It is not to be supposed that, in signing a bill, the President endorses the whole Congressional Record. For us to undertake to reconstruct an enactment from legislative history is merely to involve the Court in political controversies which are quite proper in the enactment of a bill but should have no place in its interpretation.
Moreover, there are practical reasons why we should accept whenever possible the meaning which an enactment reveals on its face. Laws are intended for all of our people to live by; and the people go to law offices to learn what their rights under those laws are. Here is a controversy which affects every little merchant in many States. Aside from a few offices in the larger cities, the materials of legislative history are not available to the lawyer who can afford neither the cost of acquisition, the cost of housing, or the cost of repeatedly examining the whole congressional history. Moreover, if he could, he would not know any way of anticipating what would impress enough members of the Court to be controlling. To accept legislative debates to modify statutory provi *397 sions is to make the law inaccessible to a large part of the country.
By and large, I think our function was well stated by Mr. Justice Holmes: “We do not inquire what the legislature meant; we ask only what the statute means.” Holmes, Collected Legal Papers, 207. See also Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, 710-711 . And I can think of no better example of legislative history that is unedifying and unilluminating than that of the Act before us.