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Document Type

Article

Abstract

Statutes have supplanted the common law as the primary source of American law. It is accordingly vital to evaluate how statutes are applied and interpreted. Most statutory interpretation scholarship focuses on enactments by Congress, is based on the perspective of courts alone, and uses non-empirical analysis. This article takes a different perspective. The article focuses on South Dakota statutes and the legislative process. It is centered on an empirical survey of legislators, lobbyists, and professional staff to ascertain their beliefs and preferences about how statutes are enacted and how they should be used. These observations are then compared with existing rules and tools of statutory interpretation in South Dakota. This takes an approach distinct from most statutory interpretation scholarship by focusing on state statutes, considering the perspective of those writing and enacting those statutes, and using empirical analysis to inform the work. This distinct approach acknowledges the importance of considering what those who write and enact statutes think about how they should be used, and provides a foundation to assess if their preferences align both among themselves and with the established interpretive practices in South Dakota. By extension, this allows an assessment of the efficiency of the communication of the primary source of law—statutes—in South Dakota.

DOI

https://www.doi.org/10.70657/SDLR.V71.I2.142

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