Drafting errors sometimes occur in

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

. Usually these errors are minor, such as incorrect punctuation or capitalization, and the meaning is unaffected. But sometimes the matter is more substantive. Commonly, the error will have something to do with cross-referencing of statutes. For instance, the U.S. statutes pertaining to probation had a drafting error which caused the section about revocation of probation for failing to submit to a drug test to incorrectly reference a section about domestic violence. By clerical error, the law also omitted an accurate reference to community confinement. However, in both cases, courts upheld Congressional intent. Sometimes courts refuse to apply

legislative intent In law, the legislative intent of the legislature in enacting legislation may sometimes be considered by the judiciary to interpret the law (see judicial interpretation). The judiciary may attempt to assess legislative intent where legislation ...

that conflicts with the text of the law, as in the case of the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 161 ...

accidentally repealing the exemptions of almost all industries from the statute requiring employers to allow employees not to work on

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...

. It was necessary for the legislature to re-assemble for a special session to correct the error. There have been instances, most commonly involving

ballot initiative In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a pu ...

s, in which the drafting error was known prior to enactment. For instance, in the case of Proposition 165, a California welfare reform initiative,

California Governor The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard. Established in the Constitution of California, the g ...

Pete Wilson Peter Barton Wilson (born August 23, 1933) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 36th governor of California from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as a United States senator from California bet ...

announced that his public campaign statements would let the courts know that a provision eliminating the legislature's power to override a veto was an "unintended error," and the mistake would be corrected, if necessary, by the courts.

References

{{Reflist Statutory law Legal error