You are here: Home: >> Legal Research: >> Federal Statutory Research: >> Federal Statutory Research: Page 2:

Federal Statutory Research: Page 2

HOW TO RESEARCH FEDERAL STATUTES

1. Locating the public law number of a recently enacted federal law

Having the public law number of a new federal law will enable you to more easily locate a copy of the text of the law. It is possible to obtain the public law number in a variety of ways:

• If you only have the popular name of a public law, check Shepard’s Acts and Cases by Popular Name. Shepard’s provides the public law number, Statutes at Large citation, and United States Code citation.
• Public law numbers can also be found in the current looseleaf service, Congressional Index, published by Commerce Clearing House (LOCATION: RESERVE KF 49 .C6: current Congress only; Earlier volumes on LL1). The Index contains a detailed subject index to legislation being considered by the current Congress. The service contains a “Status of Bills” section which lists all action taken on a particular bill and provides the public law number, if the legislation was signed into law. The Index is updated weekly.
• LEGIS is a computerized source for obtaining the number of a recent public law. LEGIS is a database of recent legislation and its legislative status in Congress. It serves both chambers of Congress, but the general public can call LEGIS for information on legislation. The phone number for LEGIS is: (202) 225-1772 LEGIS will need to have the bill number (i.e., H.R.1234 or S. 3456) which was signed into law before they can give you the public law number.
• The Office of the Federal Register, Statutes Branch, is in charge of assigning the public law numbers and the Statutes at Large citation to new laws. The Office has a Public Laws Update Service (PLUS) which provides a 24 hour/day recording of public laws recently signed. The recording gives title, number, statutory reference, and date of signature of recently signed public laws. The phone number for PLUS is: (202) 523-6641
• The public law numbers of recently signed laws are listed on the electronic bulletin board, FREND (Federal Register Electronic News Delivery) of the Office of the Federal Register. There is no charge for accessing the bulletin board. The bulletin board can be accessed using PC, modem, and telecommunications software by dialing: (202) 275-0920. FREND is also available via the Internet through FEDWORLD, a gateway system to many government electronic bulletin boards, set up by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The Internet address for FEDWORLD is: telnet fedworld.gov or ftp.fedworld.gov. FEDWORLD can also be reached through telecommunications software by dialing: (703) 321-8020.

2. Finding the text of a recently enacted public law

Once you have the public law number, you can obtain a copy of a recent text of the law from a variety of sources:

• The Law Library receives copies of slip laws. They are on Reserve and arranged by public law number.
• Copies of slip laws are available free from the House and Senate Documents Rooms:

• U.S. Code Congressional and-Administrative News (USCCAN) USCCAN is the commercially produced unofficial version of the Statutes at Large. It is published much more quickly than the Statutes at Large. As in the Statutes at Large volumes, laws in USCCAN are published chronologically. USCCAN comprises two parts--volumes containing the text of the public laws, and volumes containing legislative history information and documents. Monthly pamphlets contain federal statutes, arranged by public law number, which have been enacted within the previous two months. USCCAN also contains subject indexes and popular name tables. (LOCATION: LL1)
• United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.)
• United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.) As supplements to both of these sets, the publishers produce monthly pamphlets containing the texts of current public laws. Laws are arranged by public law number. (LOCATION: LL1)
• Specialized looseleaf services are another source for locating recent public laws.
• The text of public laws are available on LEXIS in the GENFED library.
• The text of public laws are available on WESTLAW in the US-PL database.

3. Locating the most up-to-date version of a public law

The most up-to-date text of a statute is its codified text. The codified text of a law is found in the official United States Code (U.S.C.), the unofficial United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.), or the unofficial United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.).

• All three versions of the Code (U.S.C., U.S.C.A., and U.S.C.S.) contain subject indexes to laws, popular name indexes to laws, and tables which list public laws section-by-section with an indication of their location in the Code.
• Shepard’s Acts and Cases by Popular Name lists, by popular name, where laws are located in the U.S.C.
• Specialized looseleaf services often contain the current text of a statute.
• The codified text of a law is found on LEXIS in the GENFED Library, the USCODE file.
• The codified text of a law is found on WESTLAW in the USC and USCA databases.

4. Updating federal statutes

To ensure the codified text of a law is up-to-date, publishers use bound supplements and Apocket parts@ (a supplemental pamphlet which is placed in a pocket in the back of the bound volume). It is imperative that the researcher check these supplements in order to verify that a particular code section is still valid and there have been no subsequent laws (i.e., amendments) or judicial decisions which have affected the validity of the statute:

• The U.S.C. is completely revised every six years and updated by annual bound supplements. As mentioned earlier, U.S.C. is published very slowly. For example, the 1990 supplement for the U.S.C. was not published until 1992. This makes updating a statute in the U.S.C. very difficult. Using the same title number and section number(s) of the original statute, the researcher must locate the same title and section number in each subsequent supplement of the U.S.C. in order to determine that the law has not been changed by a later amendment.
• It is in the updating process that the unofficial, annotated codes such as U.S.C A. and U.S.C.S. are invaluable. The official U.S.C. is slow in being published and does not contain the annotations to case law (i.e., “notes of decisions”), regulations, and law review articles found in U.S.C.A. and U.S.C.S.. These annotated codes are updated annually by supplements “pocket parts” in the back of each volume as well as with quarterly pamphlet supplements. After locating the text of a law in the code section in the main volume of U.S.C.A. and U.S.C.S., it is then necessary to turn to the back “pocket part” under the same section number to see if later amendments have changed the text of the law. Supplemental pamphlets should be used to update the section beyond the closing date of the pocket part. These pamphlets provide tables arranged by title and section of the Code, with an indication of any recent public laws contained in the pamphlet which have amended the section.
• As a final step in updating the text of a statute, the statute can also be shepardized. Shepard’s United States Citations: Statutes indicates subsequent laws or federal court decisions affecting the statute. In Shepard’s it is possible to search by title, section and subsection number of the Code.

Germaine Leahy
Head of Reference Department
August 1994