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Federal Codes
Explains the United States Code and how to use it.
- Introduction
- Content of Codified Laws
- Authority of Codified Laws
- United States Code
- Positive Law Codification
Introduction
Imagine trying to use the Statutes at Large to find out what the current law is in the United States! You would have to find the law as it was originally passed, then check the index for every year thereafter to see if any changes have been made to the original statute, and to see if any changes have been made to the changes.
To make things easier on you, session laws are rearranged by topics and published in codes. A code consists of the currently active body of public law passed by a legislative entity compiled and arranged according to its subject matter. Codification is the process in which laws are separated into discreet segments and arranged according to their subject matter. The codification of federal laws is performed by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel within the United States House of Representatives.
There are codes published for every level of government—in addition to the United States Code, there are codes for each state, county, and municipality.
Content of Codified Laws
Codified materials contain only the current version of any particular law:
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All subsequent additions, deletions, and modifications in the language of a particular statute are incorporated into the text.
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All repealed, superseded, and expired laws are removed from the code entirely.
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Codes are updated by pocket parts inserted into the back of each volume. If the pocket part is too large to fit in the pocket, it is shelved after the volume as a separate pamphlet.
Codes contain only public laws, whereas session laws contain both public and private laws (private laws concern individuals and are not in the immediate interest of the public).
Authority of Codified Laws
Codes are considered prima facie evidence in a court of law. This means that they are sufficient to sustain a judgment as long as no contradictory evidence is produced.
It is the session laws, however, not the codified laws, that are considered the official version of any legislative text. In the case of a discrepancy between the session law and any earlier or later version, including the code, the session law is considered to be the correct version.
Most codes have notes indicating the session law source of each section.
United States Code
- Overview
- Publication of the U.S. Code
- Tables of Contents
- Subject Indexes
- Popular Name Table
- Tables Volume
Overview
The United States Code contains a consolidation and codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States. The official U.S. Code is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and published by the Office and by the Government Printing Office.
There are also unofficial versions available from private publishers. These have a slightly different format from the official version and include some other enhancements not found in the official U.S. Code. The most popular of these are the United States Code Annotated (USCA), published by Thomson/West, and the United States Code Service (USCS), published by LexisNexis.
The U.S. Code is organized into fifty broad subject classifications called titles (two of which have been eliminated by consolidation with other titles). The titles are arranged more or less in alphabetical order, and each title contains all the laws dealing with that subject. Titles are subdivided into chapters and then into sections. (Some sections even have subsections.)
The Code also includes a multi-volume general index, historical notes that provide information on amendments or the effect of other public laws, and cross-references to other sections of the Code that contain related matter, and table volumes.
Here is a list of the titles:
- General Provisions
- The Congress
- The President
- Flag and Seal, Seat Of Government, and the States
- Government Organization and Employees
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Surety Bonds [repealed]
- Agriculture
- Aliens and Nationality
- Arbitration
- Armed Forces
- Bankruptcy
- Banks and Banking
- Census
- Coast Guard
- Commerce and Trade
- Conservation
- Copyrights
- Crimes and Criminal Procedure
- Customs Duties
- Education
- Food and Drugs
- Foreign Relations and Intercourse
- Highways
- Hospitals and Asylums
- Indians
- Internal Revenue
Code
- Intoxicating Liquors
- Judiciary and Judicial Procedure
- Labor
- Mineral Lands and Mining
- Money and Finance
- National Guard
- Navigation and Navigable Waters
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Navy [repealed]
- Patents
- Patriotic Societies and Observances
- Pay and Allowances of the Uniformed Services
- Veterans' Benefits
- Postal Service
- Public Buildings, Property, and Works
- Public Contracts
- The Public Health and Welfare
- Public Lands
- Public Printing and Documents
- Railroads
- Shipping
- Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radiotelegraphs
- Territories and Insular Possessions
- Transportation
- War and National Defense
Publication of the U.S. Code
A new, hardbound edition of the Code is published every six years. During this six-year period, statutes may be amended or even repealed. Changes to federal statutes during the course of the six years are published annually in cumulative hardbound supplements after the conclusion of each regular session of the Congress. In between publication of these supplements, you must consult the session laws and slip laws to update the Code.
The Code is also available in electronic form for online computer access from the Government Printing Office and from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.
Tables of Contents
Each volume of the U.S. Code begins with a Table of Titles and Chapters for all 50 titles in the set.
At the front of each title in the USCA and USCS is a Table of Contents that breaks the title down into into individual chapters. The breakdown in the USCA Table of Contents is of only those chapters in that individual volume; The USCS Table of Contents contains all the chapters for that title.
At the beginning of each chapter within a title, you’ll find another table of contents that breaks that chapter into individual sections.
Subject Indexes
Each version of the Code has a subject index at the end of the set. Note that the entries refer you to a title and section number rather than a volume and page number.
The index for the U.S. Code is in several hard bound volumes. The USCA and USCS have more extensive indices that are soft bound and replaced annually.
USCA and USCS also have an individual title index at the end of each title.
Popular Name Table
All three codes have an index making it possible to access acts by popular name. For example, you’re probably familiar with the names “Americans With Disabilities Act” or “USA PATRIOT Act.” If you look these names up in the popular names table, it will give you the public law number, the Statutes at Large citation, and (in the annotated codes) a citation to each relevant part of the U.S. Code.
Tables Volume
Sometimes you may have a public law and want to know where it ended up in the Code. At the end of the U.S. Code is a volume called Tables that lists public law numbers from the Statutes and Large and indicates the corresponding Title and Section in the U.S. Code.
The tables in all three versions of the U.S. Code are updated by means of hard bound supplements, pocket parts and soft bound supplements. It is best to work from the most recent to the older volumes to ensure that the citation is correct.
Positive Law Codification
Because many of the general and permanent laws that are required to be incorporated into the United States Code are inconsistent, redundant, or obsolete, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives has been engaged in a continuing comprehensive project authorized by law to revise and codify, for enactment into positive law, each title of the Code. Positive law codification is the process of preparing and enacting, one title at a time, a revision and restatement of the general and permanent laws of the United States.
Positive law codification bills prepared by the Office do not change the meaning or legal effect of a statute being revised and restated. Rather, the purpose is to remove ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections from the law.
The following titles of the Code have been enacted into positive law: 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 46, and 49. (Titles 46 and 51 are currently in the works.) Pursuant to section 204 of title 1 of the Code, the text of those titles is legal evidence of the laws contained in those titles, and the courts will receive them as proof of those laws. The other titles of the Code are prima facie evidence of the laws contained in those titles.
When this project is completed, all the titles of the Code will be legal evidence of the general and permanent laws and recourse to the numerous volumes of the United States Statutes at Large for this purpose will no longer be necessary.
When all the titles have been revised and enacted into positive law, they will be kept up to date by direct amendment. There is currently a bill in Congress (H.R. 866) that would make technical corrections (relating to cross references, typographical errors, and stylistic matters) to those titles that have so far been enacted into positive law.