Tuesday, April 05, 2022

Divining Intent Isn't Always Easy or Even Possible

But consider this:

The Florida legislature comprises 120 representatives and 40 senators, plus a "non-partisan, professional staff" to draft legislation. The governor also has a staff at his disposal, not to mention an Attorney General with staff presumably capable of looking over legislation and flagging any potential legal problems with it.

So when the legislature spends nearly three months on a seven-page bill, it's reasonable to assume that the use of ambiguous language virtually guaranteed to produce vexatious litigation in the final product is intentional, not just a fuck-up caused by poor writing skills on the part of one staffer or lack of time for consideration/amendment.

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