The Making Of Federal Statutes: Law Formation

Federal statutes are laws passed by the United States Congress, typically with the approval of the President. The process of a bill becoming a law involves several steps. Firstly, a bill is introduced, which is a proposal for a new law or a change to an existing law. The idea for a bill can come from a sitting member of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, or it can be proposed during their election campaign. Once introduced, the bill is assigned to a committee, which researches, discusses, and makes changes to it. The bill is then put before the chamber to be voted on. If it passes one body of Congress, it goes through a similar process in the other body. Once both bodies vote to accept a bill, they must work out any differences, and both chambers vote on the same version. If it passes, they present it to the President for approval. The President can approve the bill and sign it into law, or they can refuse to approve it, which is called a veto. If the President chooses to veto, Congress can override it, and the bill becomes a law. However, if the President does not sign off on a bill and Congress is no longer in session, the bill is vetoed by default, known as a pocket veto.

The role of Congress

Congress is the lawmaking branch of the federal government. The legislative process is a matter about which every person should be well informed to understand and appreciate the work of Congress. The legislative process is one of the most practical safeguards of the American democratic way of life, with its emphasis on the protection of the minority, allowing ample opportunity for all sides to be heard and make their views known.

Once a bill is introduced, it is assigned to a committee whose members will research, discuss, and make changes to the bill. The bill is then put before that chamber to be voted on. If the bill passes one body of Congress, it goes to the other body to go through a similar process of research, discussion, changes, and voting.

Once both bodies vote to accept a bill, they must work out any differences between the two versions. Then both chambers vote on the same version of the bill. If it passes, they present it to the president.

The president then considers the bill. The president can approve the bill and sign it into law. Or the president can refuse to approve a bill. This is called a veto. If the president chooses to veto a bill, in most cases, Congress can vote to override that veto, and the bill becomes a law. But if the president does not sign off on a bill and it remains unsigned when Congress is no longer in session, the bill will be vetoed by default. This action is called a pocket veto and cannot be overridden by Congress.

Congress lasts for two years, commencing in January of the year following the biennial election of Members. A Congress is divided into two regular sessions. During each Congress, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives consider over 5000 bills and enact several hundred statutes in the form of acts and joint resolutions. The statutes can range from simple designations of commemorative days to complex legislation regarding environmental, economic, and social issues, which will span hundreds of pages of text.

Each law passed is designated as either a public law or a private law and is assigned a number indicating the chronological order in which it is passed. Public laws are designed to affect the general public while private laws are passed to meet the special needs of an individual or group. Only public laws become part of the statutory code, the U.S. Code. Both will appear in separate series in the session laws, the U.S. Statutes at Large.

The role of the President

The President plays a crucial role in the process of federal statutes becoming law. Once a bill has passed both chambers of Congress, it is presented to the President for approval. The President can choose to approve the bill and sign it into law. Alternatively, the President can refuse to approve a bill, which is called a veto. If the President vetoes a bill, Congress can override this decision and pass the bill into law, as long as two-thirds of both chambers vote in favour of it. However, if the President does not sign off on a bill and Congress is no longer in session, the bill will be vetoed by default, known as a "pocket veto", which cannot be overridden by Congress.

The President also has other avenues to influence legislation. They can send a message to Congress, known as an "executive communication", which includes a draft of a proposed bill. This is usually sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate. While there is no requirement for a bill to be introduced to effectuate the President's recommendations, this practice is typically followed. The most important of these executive communications is the annual message from the President, which includes the proposed budget for Congress. This proposal, along with testimonies by government officials, forms the basis of several appropriation bills drafted by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

The publication process

Once a bill becomes a law, it is first published as a "slip law" by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) as part of the Federal Register Publications System. In this form, the law is published by itself in an unbound pamphlet. Slip laws can include the following information:

• Bill number
• Public or private law number
• Date of enactment
• Editorial notes in the margin of the text that give citations to laws mentioned in the text and United States Code classifications
• Information about the legislative history of the bill, such as citations to the Congressional Record

The next step is for all the new laws to be integrated into the pre-existing body of law. Currently, this compilation of all the "general and permanent laws" of the United States is the United States Code. The United States Code organizes statutes by subject, and each subject is assigned its own title. Titles are then "subdivided into a combination of smaller units such as subtitles, chapters, subchapters, parts, subparts, and sections, not necessarily in that order."

The United States Code was originally published in 1926, and since 1934, its main volumes have been published every six years. Prior to the United States Code, all of the federal statutes in force from 1789 to 1873 were codified in a subject-based publication that has come to be colloquially known as the Revised Statutes of 1873-’74, or simply, the Revised Statutes of the United States.

The United States Code is prepared by the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives. The Code is declared to be prima facie evidence of those laws. Its purpose is to present the laws in a concise and usable form without requiring recourse to the many volumes of the Statutes at Large containing the individual amendments.

Federal statutes are published in three formats:

• Initial publication as a slip law
• Arranged by law number in the United States Statutes at Large
• Codification in the United States Code or its predecessors

Public vs. private laws

Federal statutes are laws passed by Congress, usually with the approval of the President. Each law passed is designated as either a public law or a private law. Public laws are the most common form of law passed by Congress and are designed to affect society as a whole or a class of individuals. They are of general application and apply to the nation as a whole. Public laws are codified into the United States Code, a codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States.

Private laws, on the other hand, are passed to meet the special needs of an individual, family, or small group. They are enacted for the benefit of a particular person or group and do not become part of the statutory code. Private laws are often related to claims against the government or individual immigration or naturalization matters. They are also used to assist citizens who have been injured by government programs or who are appealing an executive agency ruling, such as deportation.

Both public and private laws are published in the United States Statutes at Large, which is the official publication of all public and private laws and resolutions from 1789 to the present. They are first published as slip laws, which are individual laws published in small pamphlets, before being compiled into bound volumes called session laws.

The difference between a bill and a joint resolution

Federal statutes are laws passed by a legislature, or Congress, and are usually approved by the President. The process of a bill becoming a law is known as the legislative process.

A bill is a proposal for a new law or a change to an existing law. It can be introduced by a sitting member of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives or be proposed during their election campaign. Bills can also be petitioned by citizens or groups who recommend a new or amended law to a member of Congress. A bill is the form used for most legislation, whether permanent or temporary, general or special, public or private.

A joint resolution is a legislative measure that requires passage by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and is then presented to the President for their approval or disapproval. There is little practical difference between a bill and a joint resolution, and both must be passed in exactly the same form by both chambers of Congress. The key difference is that a joint resolution is generally used for:

• Authorising small appropriations
• Continuing resolutions, which extend appropriation levels from a prior fiscal year
• Creating temporary commissions or other ad hoc bodies
• Creating temporary exceptions to existing law
• Amending the Constitution of the United States

Bills are generally used to add, repeal or amend laws in the United States Code, provide policy and program authorisations, and enact regular annual appropriations.

Both bills and joint resolutions can be used to create a law, but they generally serve different purposes.

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