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(This page discusses statutory law in general. To search for statutes, see Finding United States Statutes or Finding Connecticut Statutes.)
Statutes are the laws passed by the Congress or state legislature. A statute, also called an act, legislation, or, confusingly, a law, is often a broad statement of principle that is interpreted and applied by case law or implemented through administrative regulations.
Statutes begin as bills and when they pass into law are first published as slip laws or session laws. At the federal level, this version of the law is assigned a Public Law number and published in the Statutes at Large. Eventually, laws are divided and distributed in a collection of laws arranged by subject, like the United States Code or Connecticut General Statutes.
At this point, each section of the original law takes on its own identity, signified by a new number, and may be amended independently of the other sections.
For an in-depth explanation, see How Our Laws Are Made. Connecticut laws follow a similar process.
Well, it depends. Do you want the law as it passed, or the law as it is now?
If you want the law as it initially passed, unchanged by subsequent amendments, then you're looking for the slip or session law.
If you want to know what the law is now, you're looking for the United States Code or a state code.
As a bill becomes a law, it passes through many hands. At each step, documents are generated: bills, hearings, committee reports, other bills, House or Senate documents, prints, and so on. These documents comprise the law's legislative history and are used by judges and lawyers to determine legislative intent when interpreting and applying statutes in court cases.
Below is an artificially tidy sketch of the federal process with the documents produced at each step and links to help you locate them. As you look at the chart, notice how many of the different kinds of documents have very similar numbers. Because of this it's vital that you note both the numbers and the abbreviations of the source: 107-111 could be a bill number, hearing number, a public law number, or a House or Senate Document. Without the HR, SR, S Hrg, H Hrg, PL, SDoc, or HDoc, you'll never find what you're looking for. See Reading a Statutory Law Citation for help deciphering citations.
| Step | Documents |
| Idea introduced
The idea is written up as a bill or resolution and introduced to a house of Congress (the House of Representatives or the Senate) |
Bill
Example: HR 107-35 |
The bill is referred to a committee The committee or subcommittee holds hearings, accepts documents, reports favorably or unfavorably, advises changes. |
Hearings
Example: S. Hrg. 107-111 Prints and Documents
Reports
|
| Congress debates the bill and votes | Debates are transcribed in the Congressional Record.
Example: 154 Cong.Rec. S 5412 |
| Bill becomes law |
New laws are first published in paper as slip laws and given public law numbers, then published in Statutes at Large Example: PL 107-110, 115 Stat. 1425 Finally, the law is put into the U.S. Code.
See Finding United States Statutes for more help finding laws. |
| OR Presidential Veto | In the event that the President vetoes a law, documentation can be found in
The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. |
Susan Clerc
Reference Librarian
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