B. Legislation

8. The most important source of law in the United States at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century is statutory law. Our particular form of democracy was created to allow the people to choose directly the representatives who will write statutes for us. On both the national and state levels the representatives respond to social pressure and draft bills aimed at solving new or ongoing problems. The federal model, of a bicameral legislature and legislative acts subject to an executive veto, which is itself subject to an override, is followed by virtually all of the states.

9. The federal statutes are essentially the product of our legislature, the Congress, although in virtually all cases they also require approval by the president. When a bill has been approved, or enacted over the president's veto, they are known as Public Laws or in paper form, informally as the slip laws. They can either come into force immediately or on some date designated by the statute. In paper format, the slip laws are reprinted by the Government Printing Office in chronological order in volumes known as the Statutes-at-Large. They are also sent to an editing office maintained by Congress, and restructured into a subject arrangement known as the United States Code, abbreviated USC. The statutes in both these forms are available through a number of free sites on the web including Findlaw.Com and Cornell's Legal Information Institute and through commercial legal information services such as Lexis, Lois, and Westlaw. Lexis and West also publish paper versions.