When lawyers try to persuade judges, they often find it advantageous to discuss the process by which a legislature enacted a law.

Collectively, the materials from the legislative process — other than the final statute or ordinance — are referred to as “legislative history.” There are many reasons to inform judges of the legislative history of a statute, and this chapter explores some of the principal ones. For instance, legislative history can help judges to construe an ambiguous statute, can strengthen a lawyer’s policy-based argument by using the legislature’s own words, or can show that the legislative either failed to consider an issue or acted for an improper reason.