Concept

Clear statement rule

Résumé
In American law, the clear statement rule is a guideline for statutory construction, instructing courts to not interpret a statute in a way that will have particular consequences unless the statute makes unmistakably clear its intent to achieve that result. According to law professor William Popkin, such rules "insist that a particular result can be achieved only if the text...says so in no uncertain terms." Clear statement rules are commonly applied in areas implicating the structural constitution, such as federalism, sovereign immunity, nondelegation, preemption, or federal spending with strings attached. This is especially true when there is a strong interest against implicit abridgment of traditional understandings. Congress can abrogate the states' sovereign immunity in some situations. However, it cannot do so implicitly: it must "mak[e] its intention unmistakably clear in the language of the statute." Conversely, just as purported abrogation requires a clear statement, so too a purported waiver by a state requires a clear statement. The major questions doctrine arises in much the same way as the nondelegation doctrine. The Supreme Court has held in recent years that Congress is expected to be clear when it authorizes agencies to regulate issues of national significance. In a January 2022 decision regarding the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to require private-sector workers to be vaccinated, the Court reiterated that, “We expect Congress to speak clearly” if Congress wishes to empower executive branch agencies to make decisions “of vast economic and political significance.” The Court arguably applied a similar approach in the 2006 case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. According to Professor John Yoo, the Court in that case attempted "to force a clear statement rule upon congressional delegations of authority to the President." Law Professor Michael W. McConnell has written that a clear statement rule should have been used in the case of Bolling v.
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