Justices Revive Longstanding Dispute Over Right Way to Read Laws

Supreme Court justices are rethinking the rules they use to decipher laws that have been recently invoked to undo progressive policies like the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate.

Returning to the bench for the first time in a month, the justices on Tuesday heard argument in a tribal gaming law dispute in Texas. But the court veered off for part of the session to address the role of interpretive canons, which are intended to guide judges in determining what a law means.

The issue has broad implications for how judges should review executive policy measures and the public perception following recent ...