[Tax-chick]

Justice Breyer responded by saying, among other things, that law emerges from conversations among law practitioners, law students, and academics.

How odd. I thought that law "emerged" from the deliberate, public actions of the elected representatives of the American citizens.

Silly, silly Tax-chick, living in her little fantasy world ...

[Conspiracy Guy]

That is so last week.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

How odd. I thought that law "emerged" from the deliberate, public actions of the elected representatives of the American citizens.

Actually, most laws in the US "emerge" out of a drafting process into which elected representatives often have a lot less input than most voters suppose: interest groups of many sorts interest lawmakers in a new or changed law, the lawmaker(s) direct someone (usually a lawyer) to draft a statute, that someone attempts to draft a law that fits neatly within the body of existing statutes, and returns a draft which is them formally submitted by whoever requested its drafting.

Drafting legislation generally isn't a very glamorous job, and the people who do it spend a good deal of time laughing at the legal ignorance and misunderstand of lawmakers (especially at the statehouse level and below) even while attempting to divine their intent and hammer it into serviceable legal prose - a process in the course of which they are far more likely to ask ask advice of colleges and outside legal experts than of "lawmakers".

So law in fact does emerge largely "from conversations among law practitioners, law students, and academics" - this may not be civics textbook flow-chart of the lawmaking process (ever see a box marked "Lobbyists" in one of those?)... but it's how it actually works.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

How odd. I thought that law "emerged" from the deliberate, public actions of the elected representatives of the American citizens.

Actually, most laws in the US "emerge" out of a drafting process into which elected representatives often have a lot less input than most voters suppose: interest groups of many sorts interest lawmakers in a new or changed law, the lawmaker(s) direct someone (usually a lawyer) to draft a statute, that someone attempts to draft a law that fits neatly within the body of existing statutes, and returns a draft which is them formally submitted by whoever requested its drafting.

Drafting legislation generally isn't a very glamorous job, and the people who do it spend a good deal of time laughing at the legal ignorance and misunderstand of lawmakers (especially at the statehouse level and below) even while attempting to divine their intent and hammer it into serviceable legal prose - a process in the course of which they are far more likely to ask ask advice of colleges and outside legal experts than of "lawmakers".

So law in fact does emerge largely "from conversations among law practitioners, law students, and academics" - this may not be civics textbook flow-chart of the lawmaking process (ever see a box marked "Lobbyists" in one of those?)... but it's how it actually works.