textuals
Textualists are proponents of textualism, a theory of interpretation chiefly applied to statutes and constitutional texts. They contend that the meaning of a law is found primarily in the ordinary and public meaning of the text at the time it was enacted, rather than in the legislators' intentions or in external sources such as legislative history, policy goals, or the context of later events.
Textualists emphasize the text itself, including its grammar, punctuation, defined terms, and structure, and they consider
In practice, textualism is often associated with originalism in constitutional interpretation, the view that constitutional meaning
Critics dispute that textualism overemphasizes linguistic form and can fail to account for gaps or ambiguities