American courts never formally barred legislative history, only weighed it case by case.

Evidence

So far as incomplete research discloses, American courts have never regarded official records of internal legislative history as formally “inadmissible.” Instead, they have allowed counsel to cite the material and then used or ignored it as they thought proper. Is this not a sensible course? — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1971

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reliance on legislative history makes law inaccessible to ordinary lawyers and citizens. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1796; The plain-meaning rule forced lawyers into dual-level arguments about statutory meaning. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1988; Federal legislative-history practice grew through two sequential expansions. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1972