Text: The response below as written in response to a question regarding legislative intent clauses and when they were discontinued in bills. ******************You wrote, "I will be introducing the topic of legislative history and intent. My memory isn't serving well about when and why Minnesota lawmakers discontinued the use of legislative intent sections in bills. I have some hazy recall of the Senate making thatdecision before the House. Could you point me to some material that willremind me of when and why the change occurred?"I spoke with Peter Wattson, who was Senate Counsel for about thirty years. He said that the movement away from including legislative intent clauses dates from at least the early 1980s. The practice of not including legislative intent sections was codified, so to speak, forthe first time in the 1984 edition of the Revisors Manual. Peterremembers editing that section, sent over to him at the time by HarryWalsh in the Revisor's Office. There are drafting instructions in the the 1984 Revisors Manual regarding legislative intent. The first paragraph remains unchanged in the most recent edition (2002), but the examples used in the manuals have changed. "A statement of purpose or policy, sometimes termed "legislative intent" should be used only when essential. If the bill is otherwiseclear, as should be the case, a recitation of what the legislatureintended should serve no purpose. However, courts sometimes use policystatements to interpret law, and a statement may be appropriate iflitigation about intent is expected."The practice was formally stated in the Revisors Manual for the first timein 1984, but Peter felt the practice may already have been in place. There are problems with legislative intent sections, Peter noted. Sometime senators would spend so much time debating the first generalparagraph that they would lose focus on working on the actual operativelanguage. Sometimes things may be stated broadly in a statement of intentthat are not covered in the actual language of the bill, creatingconfusion. He remembered Senator Gerald Willet's impatience with detailed legislative intent sections. "This thing reads like a novel," he complained one time as he moved to strike the intent section of a bill.