Bank One Chicago, N. A. v. Midwest Bank & Trust Co., 516 U.S. 264, 16 (1996)

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Cite as: 516 U. S. 264 (1996)

Opinion of Scalia, J.

however, that best sets forth the reasons for reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Justice Breyer has authorized me to say that he agrees with the foregoing views.

Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court's opinion, except that portion of it which enters into a discussion of "[t]he drafting history of § 4010." Ante, at 273. In my view a law means what its text most appropriately conveys, whatever the Congress that enacted it might have "intended." The law is what the law says, and we should content ourselves with reading it rather than psychoanalyzing those who enacted it. See United States v. Public Util. Comm'n of Cal., 345 U. S. 295, 319 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring). Moreover, even if subjective intent rather than textually expressed intent were the touchstone, it is a fiction of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk proportions to assume that more than a handful of those Senators and Members of the House who voted for the final version of the Expedited Funds Availability Act, and the President who signed it, were, when they took those actions, aware of the drafting evolution that the Court describes; and if they were, that their actions in voting for or signing the final bill show that they had the same "intent" which that evolution suggests was in the minds of the drafters.

Justice Stevens acknowledges that this is so, but asserts that the intent of a few committee members is nonetheless dispositive because legislators are "busy people," and "most Members [of Congress] are content to endorse the views of the responsible committees." Ante, at 276. I do not know the factual basis for that assurance. Many congressional committees tend not to be representative of the full House, but are disproportionately populated by Members whose constituents have a particular stake in the subject matter— agriculture, merchant marine and fisheries, science and technology, etc. I think it quite unlikely that the House of Rep-

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