Larry Alexander (University of San Diego School of Law) has posted Formalist Textualism and the Cernauskas Problem (Journal of Contemporary Legal issues, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2021) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In this short piece I respond to a recent article in the Harvard Law Review advocating an approach to interpretation that amounts to semantic literalism. I point out the pitfalls of thereby ignoring what the lawmakers are asserting.