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Finally, we note that our respondents' answers in this context continued to highlight the themes that we have already introduced. Specifically, we learned that committee jurisdiction can be an important signal of when Congress in- tends to delegate authority and that inside information that may be impenetra- ble to courts-such as the personal reputation of the agency head-carries over into assumptions about delegation. We also introduce a new theme: the pres- ence of linguistic signaling conventions of delegation widely deployed inside of Congress but virtually unknown to courts.
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ambiguity as a signal of delegation; unlike in the federalism context, our re- spondents understood the consequences of Chevron. Our respondents also told us that knowing the canon affects the degree of specificity they use while draft- ing. At the same time, most of our respondents told us that their knowledge of Chevron does not mean that they intend to delegate whenever ambiguity re- mains in finalized statutory language. Instead, they told us that, although ambi- guity sometimes signals intent to delegate, often it does not, and Chevron is not a reason that drafters leave statutes ambiguous. Intriguingly, then, in the lan- guage of our typology, for our respondents, Chevron is a feedback canon that does not well approximate how Congress drafts.
Chevron does function for many of our respondents as a reminder about the consequences of ambiguity and as an incentive to think about the level of detail in a statute. Eighty respondents (58%) said that Chevron plays a role when they are drafting. Forty-three respondents (31%) specifically indicated through their comments that they understood that statutory ambiguity results in judicial def- erence to agency interpretations.341 Forty respondents (29%) told us that Chev- ron forces them to think about how precisely to draft, and whether or not they need to "curtail"342 the agency.343 As one respondent remarked, "the main is- sue in drafting is how much discretion and we assume the courts will give def- erence. I'm hyperconscious of the extent to which we are giving them room.
That's always part of the debate."344 Another explained: "Chevron is more like an incentive to be more specific when you want to be clear about what the agency should do. The presumption is broad deference, so we try to be clear when we want otherwise."345 If true, Chevron, like the federalism canons, may function more as a "deliberation-forcing" rule about the level of textual speci- ficity than as a common language through which courts and Congress com- municate about how to resolve lingering statutory ambiguity.
2. Chevron is not a reason for ambiguity
Our respondents did not strongly identify Chevron as an affirmative reason to leave an ambiguity. They told us that decisions to leave statutory terms am-
341. Q21; Q22.
342. Q21.
343. Q21; Q22.
344. Q21.
345. Q22. The focus on specificity obviously runs in two directions. On the one hand, thirty-two respondents told us that Chevron incentivizes them to be more specific because they want to control the agency. See, e.g., Q21 ("We've had to be more specific because when you leave ambiguities, agencies will run with it," and "[i]f an agency has shown from its past behavior that it won't do what you want, you put it in black and white."). On the oth- er hand, nine respondents (including one of the thirty-two mentioned above) made comments like "Chevron sometimes gives us comfort when things are ambiguous because we can't get more clarity." Id.
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biguous are typically made without regard to whether the courts will later defer to an agency interpretation. Almost half of our respondents (45%) expressed agreement with the statement that the deference rules allow drafters to leave statutory terms ambiguous because they know that agencies can fill the gaps.
But 15% of that 45% (and 28% of all 137 respondents, including some re- spondents who did not agree with this statement about the deference rules) of- fered comments specifically directed at resisting the notion that Chevron itself was the reason that drafters leave aspects of statutes ambiguous. They stated, for example, "it's about punting to the agency and not about Chevron in partic- ular, but you do know the agency can fill the gaps."34 6 To be sure, respondents were quick to acknowledge the prevalence of ambiguity in statutes, and 91%
reported that one reason for statutory ambiguity is a desire to delegate decisionmaking to agencies.347 But an even greater number of our respondents also identified reasons apart from and unrelated to Chevron that account for statutory ambiguity, including lack of time (92%), the complexity of the issue (93%), and the need for consensus (99%).348 "It's not because courts give def- erence," one explained, "but it's often intentional for other reasons. There are multiple reasons that statutes are ambiguous, sometimes political, getting con- sensus, sometimes quite intentional because regulators have the expertise and things get worked out better by the agency."349 These are the reasons for ambi- guity that the Court identified in Chevron; it appears that those remain the rea- sons for ambiguity. In other words, for our respondents, Chevron does not ap- pear to have increased the likelihood of ambiguity or its use as an additional signal that drafters were not using before the Court's decision.
What we take away from these findings is that Chevron now seems to be a relatively fixed point in many of our respondents' drafting practices, but that the doctrine's assumptions are not entirely reflective of their intent. While most of our respondents indicated that they would think about agency delegation even in the absence of these canons, our data suggest that Chevron itself en- courages more thought about the questions at issue and how specific statutes should be. At the same time, for our respondents, Chevron itself does not seem to be a typical reason for ambiguity. Rather the reasons for ambiguity remain those that the Court identified in Chevron.
We note a parallel to our observation about dictionary use. We did not ask respondents how they signal ambiguity or how they would define "ambiguity"
if asked. Given that the Court has recently used the Chevron doctrine in cases concerning the meaning of words such as "charge," "percentile," and "stu-
346. Q22.
347. Q50f.
348. Q50a-c.
349. Q22.
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dent,"350 it seems unlikely here too that even those drafters who would use am- biguity as a signal would always--or often-be able to predict which words will ultimately become the cause of dispute. One reason this concern may not have received much previous attention is because most judges and scholars have assumed that Chevron's primary assumption-that Congress uses ambigu- ity to signal delegation-is a fiction in the first place. But our findings indicate that at least some staffers do seem to draft in Chevron's shadow. The potential feedback loop that we have identified faces an obstacle, however, if the length of Chevron's shadow is ultimately unpredictable.
B. Mead and Other Signals of Delegation as Reasonable Approximations