The U.S. Code

1. The U.S. Code January, 2013

2. What is the US Code? • The official compilation of all general and permanent laws in force of the United States • Consolidated and classified according to subject matter • Comprises 51 titles • 26 Positive law titles • 25 Non-Positive law titles • Republished every six years • Annual Supplements • Maintained by the U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel (OLRC)

3. What are the Statutes At Large? • Chronological compilation of the slip laws (Acts of Congress) • Published in annual volumes • The official source for the laws passed by the United States Congress • Also called “session laws”

4. What are Non-Positive Titles in the US Code • Subject-based compilation of the permanent laws found in the Statutes at Large • Volumes, named Titles, arranged by subject • Statute sections are classified by subject matter into title hierarchy • http://uscodebeta.house.gov/classification/tbl112pl_2nd.htm • http://uscode.house.gov/table3/table3.pdf • http://www.law.cornell.edu/topn/saccharin_study_and_labeling_act • Non-positive law is regarded as prima facie ("on the face") evidence of the law in most courts • Statutes at Large take precedence in case of conflicts • Statutes classified into non-positive law are amended

5. What are Positive Law Titles in the US Code? • Positive law titles are a revision and restatement of non-positive titles in the US Code • Removes redundancies, inconsistencies, and conflicts • Positive law is regarded as "legal evidence" of the law in most courts • Positive Law Titles are themselves enacted as Statutes • Sections of existing statutes that are restated into positive law are repealed upon enactment of positive law titles • Positive law is directly amended

6. Bill/Report New Statute Existing Statute Logical Code Published Code Year 1958 Non-Positive Law Classify PL 85-568 Title 42 Bill ID? Enact Classify Sec. 206 §2476 v1 Credit Amend Year 1971 Title 42 1970 Bill ID? PL 92-68 PL 85-568 Title 42 Enact Supp. 1 Amend Publish Execute Amendment Sec. 7 Sec. 206 §2476 v2 §2476 v2 Credit Credit Amend Year 2000 Title 42 2000 PL 106-391 Bill ID? PL 85-568 Title 42 Enact Edition Amend Publish Execute Amendment Sec. 302 Sec. 206 §2476 v3 §2476 v3 Credit Credit Year 2010 Positive Law Codification PL 111-314 Repeal Bill ID? Enact Sec. 3 Execute Enactment Draft Title 51 2006 Title 51 Title 51 Supp. IV Publish Issued by Execute Enactment §20116 §20116 §20116 Judiciary Com. Credit Credit Historical and Historical and Editorial Insertion Rev. Notes Rev. Notes Expl. of the Report of the Draft Codification? Codification? Title 42 2006 PL 85-568 Title 42 Bill Bill Supp. IV Publish Repeal Historical and Historical and §2476 §2476 Rev. Notes Rev. Notes Execute Repeal Sec. 6 Sec. 206 Repeal Repeal Notes Notes BChang, 18-Oct-2012

7. Important Terminology • Bills become statutes when enacted • Statutes are classified into non-positive titles of the US Code • Amendments are executed, producing next versions of affected sections in the US Code • The US Code is compiled by the House OLRC • Statutes that are classified are called codified statutes • Statutes that are not classified are called uncodified statutes • Non-positive law titles are codified* and enacted into positive law titles * The term codified is apparently used a bit loosely

8. Issues • Definition of a “document” in the US Code • US Code itself, title, etc. • Versioning granularity • Infrequent publication of whole document • Granular amending • Mapping Complexities • Classification process • Mapping Acts of a Section to Sections of the US Code