Vetogates and American Public Law

eskridge jr, william n.;

In this article, I explore the ramifications of a vetogates model of the legislative
process. The vetogates model focuses on the many points in the legislative process
where proposed legislation can be stopped (vetoed). A political system
where statutes must pass through a variety of filters, each motivated by somewhat
different incentives and interests, is one where (1) statutes are hard to
enact; (2) statutes that are enacted will tend to have compromises, logrolls,
and delegations; and, (3) once enacted, statutes are hard to repeal. These consequences represent a significant cost of the vetogates model to our system of
governance, but they also carry some potential benefits. I explore the ramifications
of the vetogates model for legal doctrine. For example, the vetogates
model supports judicial consultation of legislative history in statutory cases
and suggests the virtue of deliberation-rewarding canons for judicial review
of agency statutory interpretations