How to Understand Legislatures: A Comment on Boudreau, Lupia, McCubbins, and Rodriguez

Much has been written about legal interpretation, and I have serious disagreements with most of it. So it is quite refreshing to read an article on the topic that, from my perspective, gets the topic right from start to finish. As an added bonus, two of the authors are my former colleagues. My enthusiasm for the approach taken by Boudreau, Lupia, McCubbins, and Rodriguez (hereinafter BLMR) has not proven fatal to my task of commenting on the article.

I am not reduced to saying "Right on" and then signing off. There are issues to be flagged. Nonetheless, so much of what BLMR have to say is just plain good sense on a topic that is sorely in need of it that my remarks will be mainly promptings to take their basic approach further than they have done.