[House Atreides]

“It can’t be just the plain language of the law that they look at. It has to also be the debate that led to that final language....”
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Sorry, but the way it’s SUPPOSED to be is a multi-step process. First the language of the law itself is examined and if that language is clear the legislation is implemented according to the actual words of the law. Only if the language of the law is ambiguous do we go to “legislative intent”, first by examining the “Committee Report” for the legislation.

The language of the subsidy portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is as clear as piss on a Sunday morning so no need to go further.

I don’t have time to track down the committee report for the ACA now, but I did in the past and found nothing to contradict the plain language of the law itself.

http://www.aallnet.org/mm/Publications/llj/LLJ-Archives/Vol-105/no-2/2013-7.pdf

[Political Junkie Too]

Then why bother consulting the Federalist Papers when a Constitutional issue arises? If it gets to SCOTUS, the have to look at multiple places to ensure that they are right, because there is nobody after them.

They go back to the debates that crafted the Constitution order to understand original intent. The same is true here. They have to go back to the debate to understand the original intent for the prevention of subsidies for federal exchanges.

They can't just be a "fix" for Democrats who want to roll Republicans with bad-faith negotiating.

-PJ