How to Use legislate in a Sentence

legislate

verb
  • They are attempting to legislate morality.
  • The time to legislate is not next week, next year, next decade.
    — Kate Graham-Shaw, Scientific American, 9 July 2024
  • Why are both so afraid to legislate the right to choose among their constituents?
    — John Tamny, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2025
  • The court’s job is to enforce the law as written, not legislate from the bench.
    — Christina Avery, The Arizona Republic, 10 July 2024
  • This needs to be hashed out and proved to be tricky to legislate, Calhoun said.
    — Brent Schrotenboer, USA TODAY, 14 Oct. 2020
  • The last thing the game needs is another rule that legislates action on the field.
    — Patrick Saunders, The Denver Post, 22 June 2019
  • Are there any states that have really figured out how to legislate against this?
    — Leah Feiger, WIRED, 6 Sep. 2024
  • Thus, the bone-rattling hits of yore are being legislated out of the game.
    — Bob Ryan, BostonGlobe.com, 19 May 2018
  • Its attempt to legislate a near-ban was rejected amid mass protests.
    — Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2024
  • The Supreme Court has always said that states have a right to legislate in this area.
    — Fox News Staff, Fox News, 8 Sep. 2021
  • Congress still legislates, albeit at a glacial pace.
    — Alejandro Reyes, Washington Post, 3 Feb. 2026
  • But the state should not be involved in legislating your oblivion.
    — Fox News, 30 Aug. 2018
  • Could the festival legislate on this too in the future?
    — Norine Raja, Vanity Fair, 11 May 2026
  • And that's what happened, there's this trope that Congress can't legislate.
    — NBC News, 3 Oct. 2021
  • Neither of us has ever been inclined to legislate that on others, but held it to be true in our own hearts.
    — Washington Post, 13 Oct. 2020
  • For more than a decade, Congress has struggled to legislate on a range of issues.
    — Gregory Koger, Vox, 12 Nov. 2018
  • The Warriors are proof that no one can legislate how much talent a team should be allowed to have.
    — Bob Ford, Philly.com, 13 June 2017
  • Then the Democrats had to legislate, with zero margin for error.
    — Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 5 Nov. 2022
  • There can be lifelong consequences to legislating what women can and cannot do with their own body.
    — Abby Gardner, Glamour, 12 Apr. 2019
  • Their suit is an invitation to legislate from the bench, or perhaps from the jury room.
    — Edward Fitzpatrick, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Aug. 2019
  • New York City has even tried to legislate against the practice, though any law would be hard to enforce.
    — Emma Grey Ellis, WIRED, 14 Aug. 2019
  • So if Congress wants that changed, then Congress can legislate.
    — CBS News, 15 Feb. 2026
  • The best judges administer the law fairly and The best judges do not legislate from the bench.
    — Cincinnati.com, 28 June 2017
  • Knight will strictly interpret the law as written and never legislate from the bench.
    — James Hartley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Feb. 2024
  • Unable to legislate changes to its mission, some lawmakers have figured out a way to try to do an end-run around the body.
    — Robert Faturechi, ProPublica, 10 Mar. 2020
  • McGlynn hopes that the more people talk about the issue and legislate around it, the better things will get.
    — Molly Longman, refinery29.com, 27 Oct. 2022
  • But integration can’t be legislated from the top down alone.
    — Emeka Ajene, semafor.com, 29 Sep. 2025
  • California is the first state in the nation to legislate later start times at public schools.
    — Leada Gore | [email protected], al, 14 Oct. 2019
  • The failure to legislate isn’t just leaving people behind.
    — Chris Purdy, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Aug. 2025
  • Congress could legislate what defenses the officers would and would not be allowed to have in those cases.
    — Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'legislate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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