The U.S. Code
January, 2013
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)
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”
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
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repealed upon enactment of positive law titles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
Bill/Report
New Statute
Existing Statute
Logical Code
Published Code
Year 1958
Non-Positive Law
Bill ID?
Enact
Classify
PL 85-568
Title 42
Classify
Sec. 206
§2476 v1
Credit
Amend
Year 1971
Bill ID?
Enact
PL 92-68
PL 85-568
Publish
Amend
Sec. 7
Title 42
Sec. 206
Execute Amendment
§2476 v2
§2476 v2
Credit
Credit
Amend
Year 2000
Bill ID?
Enact
PL 106-391
PL 85-568
Title 42 2000
Edition
Title 42
Publish
Amend
Sec. 302
Sec. 206
Execute Amendment
§2476 v3
§2476 v3
Credit
Credit
Year 2010
Codification
Bill ID?
PL 111-314
Enact
Draft
Sec. 3
Execute Enactment
Title 51
Publish
Execute Enactment
§20116
Editorial Insertion
Expl. of the
Codification?
Bill
Historical and
Rev. Notes
BChang, 18-Oct-2012
Report of the
Codification?
Bill
Historical and
Rev. Notes
PL 85-568
§20116
Credit
Historical and
Rev. Notes
Credit
Historical and
Rev. Notes
Title 42
Sec. 206
Execute Repeal
Title 51 2006
Supp. IV
§20116
Publish
Repeal
Sec. 6
Positive Law
Repeal
Title 51
Issued by
Judiciary Com.
Draft
Title 42 1970
Supp. 1
§2476
Repeal
Notes
Title 42 2006
Supp. IV
§2476
Repeal
Notes
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
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