Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-7451_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 38.0

Cite as:  574 U. S. ___ (2015) 

11 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

States, 573 U. S. ___, ___ – ___, n. 4 (2014) (slip op., at 6–7, 
n. 4).  This Court has never thought that of such ordinary 
stuff surplusage is made.  See ibid.; Connecticut Nat. Bank 
v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253 (1992).

And  the  legislative  history  to  which  the  plurality  ap-
peals,  see  ante,  at  6,  only  cuts  against  it  because  those 
materials  show  that  lawmakers  knew  that  §1519  and 
§1512(c)(1) share much common ground.  Minority Leader 
Lott  introduced  the  amendment  that  included  §1512(c)(1)
(along with other criminal and corporate fraud provisions)
late in the legislative process, explaining that he did so at 
the  specific  request  of  the  President.    See  148  Cong.  Rec. 
12509, 12512 (2002) (remarks of Sen. Lott).  Not only Lott
but several other Senators noted the overlap between the 
President’s  package  and  provisions  already  in  the  bill, 
most  notably  §1519.  See  id.,  at  12512  (remarks  of  Sen. 
Lott);  id.,  at  12513  (remarks  of  Sen.  Biden); id.,  at  12517 
(remarks  of  Sens.  Hatch  and  Gramm).    The  presence  of
both  §1519  and  §1512(c)(1)  in  the  final  Act  may  have 
reflected  belt-and-suspenders  caution:  If  §1519  contained 
some flaw, §1512(c)(1) would serve as a backstop.  Or the 
addition of §1512(c)(1) may have derived solely from legis-
lators’ wish “to satisfy audiences other than courts”—that
is,  the  President  and  his  Justice  Department.    Gluck  & 
Bressman,  Statutory  Interpretation  from  the  Inside,  65
Stan. L. Rev. 901, 935 (2013) (emphasis deleted).  Which-
ever the case, Congress’s consciousness of overlap between 
the two provisions removes any conceivable reason to cast
aside  §1519’s  ordinary  meaning  in  service  of  preventing 
some statutory repetition. 

Indeed,  the  inclusion  of  §1512(c)(1)  in  Sarbanes-Oxley 
creates a far worse problem for the plurality’s construction
of §1519 than for mine.  Section 1512(c)(1) criminalizes the 
destruction  of  any  “record,  document,  or  other  object”;
§1519  of  any  “record,  document,  or  tangible  object.”    On 
the plurality’s view, one “object” is really an object, where-