INTRODUCTION

Federal statutes are legislative enactments passed by both the United States House and Senate, and which typically are signed into law by the President of the United States. (Some enactments are vetoed by the President, but later are passed by measures overriding the veto. ) Statutes begin as bills submitted by one or more members of either branch of the United States Congress. Since 1957, enacted bills are designated by the number of the Congress (for example, 107th Congress) and the order of passage (for example 107-1). Enacted bills are called Public Laws. Public laws may address matters pertaining to one or more subject areas (for example, the environment and education). To illustrate, the first bill passed by the 107th Congress would be Public Law 107-1. Once passed, Public Laws are slotted into subject matter classifications called Titles and become part of the United States Code.

SLIP LAWS, SESSION LAWS, AND NOTIFICATIONS OF BILL PASSAGE

Public Laws KF50 .U52, Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office

Session laws initially are printed by the United States Government in a paper form, popularly known as "slip laws." Slip laws are unbound paper pamphlets with a format similar to that in the United States Statutes at Large (discussed later in the guide). Once these enacted bills are incorporated into the United States Statutes at Large, a hardbound publication, the paper pamphlets usually are discarded by libraries. This government publication is considered the "official" source of federal session laws.

United States Code Congressional and Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.), KF63 .U5, West Publishing Company

U.S.C.C.A.N. has multiple facets but its update pamphlets are useful for federal statute searches. U.S.C.C.A.N. update pamphlets are published monthly and contain a review of actions by all branches of government, with the exception of case law issued by the Judiciary Branch. U.S.C.C.A.N. provides Public Laws, Presidential Proclamations, Executive Orders and Messages, Federal Regulations, Legislative History, and Court Rules. A convenient thumb index is located on the back of each pamphlet. The U.S.C.C.A.N. pamphlets also list current cabinet members, senators, and representatives. U.S.C.C.A.N. is a privately published, for-profit publication.

United States Code Service--Advance Service (U.S.C.S. Advance Service), KF62 .U6, Lexis Publishing

U.S.C.S. is a private, for-profit publication of federal statutes. The advance service of U.S.C.S. contains updating information similar to U.S.C.C.A.N., except for the deletion of legislative history.

United States Statutes at Large, KF50 .U5 Stat., Office of the Federal Register of the Archivist of the United States

The Office of the Federal Register of the Archivist of the United States is required by federal law to publish the United States Statutes at Large (1 U.S.C. §112), which stipulates that this publication is legal evidence of the text of the laws of the United States in all federal and in all state courts.

The United States Statutes at Large (often abbreviated as "Stat.") contains the public laws and private laws passed by the Congress of the United States (commonly known as "session laws"), in addition to providing Concurrent Resolutions, Proclamations of the President, and Reorganization Plans. The session laws are cited by a Public Law number, a volume, and a page (for example, Children’s Bicycle Helmet Safety Act of 1994, Public Law 103-267, 108 Stat. 726). See Cohen, Morris L., et al., How to Find the Law, for a more detailed discussion of the numbering scheme. Note that session laws before 1956 are designated by chapter numbers instead of public law numbers.

Provisions of a session law may relate to multiple subjects. The Office of the Law Revision Counsel is given the task of assigning portions of a law to the most appropriate of the fifty subject matter titles in the United States Code. Because the United States Statutes at Large provides legal evidence of texts, legal pleadings often contain both the session law and the United States Code citation of a statute (for example, Children’s Bicycle Helmet Safety Act of 1994, Public Law 103-267, 108 Stat. 726, 15 U.S.C. §6001).

The United States Statutes at Large cannot be used effectively to trace evolution of laws, but it nonetheless contains important information. Bill numbers, date of passage, and the United States Code section to which the law is assigned are readily apparent in the modern volumes of this set.

Neither the United States Statutes at Large nor the official Internet sites can be used to update session laws. Instead, consult the tables and supplements of the codified publications. Tables in those sources contain a list of the acts or statutes with their classifications in the United States Code. In addition, the tables will explain if the statute has been repealed, amended, or placed in a revised title. The code supplements and pocket parts will provide further updating.

CODIFICATION OF FEDERAL STATUTES

Codification is the process by which public laws are consolidated into the whole of federal law. Public Laws are classified by topic and are placed in one of the fifty titles (subject categories) comprising the United States Code.

Revised Statutes, KF60 1878 (the predecessor to the United States Code)

By mid-nineteenth century, the proliferation of session laws and the difficulty of searching non-cumulating indexes made apparent the need for a subject arrangement of federal law. In response to this need, the 43rd Congress (1873-4) enacted the "Revised Statutes of the United States." Congress reenacted, as positive law, all permanent Public Laws to that date and repealed the text of the Statutes at Large to that date. This was the first official codification of federal statutes in the United States. A second edition was published in 1878. After this effort, another fifty years passed before the publication of the United States Code. In the interim, private publications attempted to fill the gap.

United States Code (U.S.C.), KF62 .U5, United States Government Printing Office

Today, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, United States House of Representatives, is charged with consolidating and codifying the public laws. The process involves assigning the text of each law to one of fifty subject matter codes (for example, "Agriculture" or "Public Health and Welfare"), and then publishing it in the United States Code. The United States Code (U.S.C.) is published in its entirety every six years, but is updated annually with bound supplements. The publication is cumulative of existing laws. Thus, one does not refer to prior editions of the code to do research, unless the law has been repealed. Similarly, each supplement cumulates materials from the previous year’s supplement, so one does not consult preceding supplements for changes since the last full edition.

Legislation creating the United States Code was passed on June 30, 1926. The Code did not repeal, however, the text of the United States Statutes at Large. Thus, until Congress began re-enacting the Code as positive law, the United States Statutes at Large was legal evidence of the text of the law. Now, forty percent of the subject matter codes have been re-enacted as positive law. The United States Statutes at Large remains the positive law for those portions that have not been re-enacted. Those United States Code provisions are only prima facie evidence of federal law and, if the text conflicts with the text of the United States Statutes at Large for some reason, the United States Statutes at Large take precedence. Some of the most important titles have not been re-enacted as positive law (for example, Title 21 (Food and Drugs), Title 26 (Internal Revenue), Title 29 (Labor), and Title 42 (Public Health and Welfare). Note that the numbering of the paragraphs and subparagraphs in the United States Statutes at Large is not the same as that of the United States Code. Therefore, most pleadings cite to both sources.

Although the United States Code publication schedule is on a slow timetable, some features may be helpful to researchers. A Popular Name Table and other tables help researchers locate citations. Also, the U.S.C. contains a complete list of the statutes for each session of Congress and where these statutes appear in the United States Code. Remember, however, that the printing and dissemination of the set to libraries is six months to two years behind enactment of the statutes.

United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.), KF62 .U5, West Publishing Company

The United States Code Annotated is a private, for-profit publication which contains references to legislative history, West American Digest System Key Numbers, Corpus Juris Secundum, and other West publications. The U.S.C.A. is more up-to-date than the United States Code and is supplemented with "pocket parts" slipped into the back cover of each volume or alternatively with paperback supplements. Most important, the U.S.C.A. contains short summaries of cases (called "Notes of Decisions") which interpret statutes. The summaries are preceded by a subject outline which explains which numbered summaries pertain to particular areas of the law. One feature accompanying most Notes of Decisions is "construction with other laws." This means that the cases will discuss how a particular statute affects or intersects with other statutes. One caution: finding amendments to statutes in the U.S.C.A. is becoming difficult because many amendments are put into statute notes, which do not appear within the main paragraphs, and are in small typeface.

The U.S.C.A. contains a multi-volume General Index, with a Popular Name Table appearing in the last volume. (A popular name table accesses a law by the popular name given to it by Congress, such as the "Voting Rights Act of 1965.") The Popular Name Table provides the reader with all the Public Law Numbers relevant to the act as well as supplies the United States Code title and section numbers.

United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.), KF62 .U6, Lawyer’s Co-Op, a division of LEXIS Publishing.

The United States Code Service is an alternative to the U.S.C.A. The two publications differ in that U.S.C.S. preserves more closely the original United States Statutes at Large text. The U.S.C.S. contains statutory history and references to applicable federal regulations, cross references to American Jurisprudence, and summaries of applicable case law. Like U.S.C.A., the set has a multi-volume index and is updated with pocket parts or with paperback pamphlets. Tables (including Popular Name Table) are located in a bound volume supplemented by pocket parts. The tables contain Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Reorganization Plans. The U.S.C.S. also contains an "Index and Finding Aid to the Code of Federal Regulations" and the "Federal Sentencing Guidelines."

UPDATING FEDERAL STATUTES

Shepard’s Federal Statute Citations, KF78 .S53, Shepard’s / McGraw-Hill

This Shepard’s citator alerts the researcher when a federal statute has been amended, repealed, or affected by case law. Even specific subsections of statutes are separated for explanation. The citator arranges information in columns under a statute, using abbreviated signals to indicate actions. A key to the abbreviations, as well as an explanation of how to use the service, appears at the beginning of the volume. Shepard’s Federal Statute Citations also indicates treatment of a statute in American Law Reports (ALR) or Lawyer’s Edition publications. The citator is especially useful for statutes which are no longer in effect or which predate the current United States Code.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Secondary research aids contain references to statutes, case law, administrative regulations, and administrative decisions. Secondary sources often provide a superior starting point for legal research because they provide an overview and a context of the legal problem, which may not be apparent from primary source research. Secondary sources for federal statutory research include legal encyclopedias, such as American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum. Other excellent launching sites for federal statutory research include American Law Reports Annotated, treatises, and law review and legal journal articles. Once the researcher obtains references to statutes from secondary sources, utilizing the primary sources, such as U.S.C.A. and U.S.C.S., becomes more efficient.

INTERNET SITES

Several major subscription databases are available for online federal statutory research. LEXIS, LOISLAW, and WESTLAW are available for a fee, charging by individual searches or on a time basis. LEXIS and WESTLAW are available to faculty and students with academic passwords. Public patrons may subscribe to these two databases independently by contacting the companies and then paying with a credit card. Our library maintains a subscription to LOISLAW, which is available for use by all of our patrons by obtaining a temporary password from the Patron Services Desk or from the Reference Desk. The following list suggests other Internet sites which provide high-quality federal statutory information.

THOMAS at The Library of Congress http://thomas.loc.gov/

THOMAS contains the Congressional Record and the full text of legislation from 1989 (the 101st Congress) to the present date. In addition, THOMAS has summaries (not full-text) of legislation from 1975 (the 94th Congress) to 1988 (the 100th Congress).

Congressional Universe http://web.lexis-nexis.com/congcomp from Lexis-Nexis Academic & Library Solutions

Congressional Universe provides comprehensive access to legislative information, including histories, indexes, reports, bill tracking, and voting records. Our library’s subscription to this service is available to South Texas College of Law faculty and students. Also, public patrons may use the service in our computer lab after obtaining a temporary password for our school’s computer network.

United States House of Representatives: Office of the Law Revision Counsel http://uscode.house.gov/

In addition to providing links to important information about the United States Congress, the site has a useful explanation of the weight of authority given to the various iterations of the law.

United States Government Printing Office http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/cong013.html

The site is the portal to information on government publications, and is co-sponsored by the United States Senate and House.

Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School http://www.4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

LII provides a search engine to the House of Representatives site and to the THOMAS site. A Popular Names Table and links to recent Public Laws are special features of this site.

SUGGESTED READING

Cohen, Morris L., et al. 1989 How to Find the Law. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.