U.S. statutory law is organized into 50 books, known as titles. Each title should contain only those laws that have to do with a discrete subject area. In addition, it should only contain general and permanent laws — excluding provisions that apply only for a limited time (e.g., an annual appropriations law) or to a small number of people (e.g., a private law). For example, Title 7 should only contain permanent laws having to do with agriculture. Title 28 should only concern the judiciary and judicial procedure.

However, the last time that all law was organized in this way (or “codified”) was in 1926. Since then, entirely new areas of law have emerged that weren’t part of the original structure. Those laws have been placed into the code wherever was convenient, without Congress necessarily considering where would make the most sense.

Over time, this has created a mess. Laws that are related to one another often are placed in completely different places. Occasionally, Congress enacts laws that contain technical errors. And, the passage of time and future legislation render certain provisions obsolete.

In response to these issues, the Office of Law Revision Counsel recodifies the laws: it reorganizes and rewords them. However, without legislative action, the office’s recodification does not have full legal force. In those instances, to see the actual text of the law, you have to look up the original bill passed by Congress and compare it against any additional laws that modify that original law.

Unless Congress enacts and the president signs the OLRC’s suggested revisions into law, the recodified text serves as a guide to how the law should be organized; it is prima facie (i.e., facial) evidence of what the law is. When Congress enacts the OLRC’s codification, it transforms the code into “positive law,” and repeals the statutes that originally created the laws. The only statutory law left is that newly-passed U.S. Code title.

As things currently stand, 24 titles have been revised and enacted into law. The other titles remain only prima facie evidence of the law.

The process of turning proposed codifications of the law into positive law can take a lot of time. After the OLRC proposes revisions to the code, it invites comments from federal agencies and non-governmental stakeholders in a process that can take more than a year. Currently, the OLRC has proposed six revisions to U.S. law, including the addition of four new titles to the code.

Congress, however, isn’t always so quick to act. For example, legislation to codify Title 41, concerning public contracts, was first introduced in the House of Representatives in May 2004. It has been reintroduced each subsequent Congress since then, and was finally passed by the House of Representatives on May 6, 2009. The ball is now in the Senate’s court.

The OLRC has been taking steps to update its services. It recently started a twitter feed, and it is interesting to watch as the OLRC announces where newly enacted legislation should be classified. In addition, OLRC recently updated its “popular name tool,” which allows users to find legislation by its popularly known name. Another useful resource from the office is its online search engine, which returns the most recently published version of the code plus a page containing any subsequent amendments or notes, and Public Law citation information. I can’t wait to see what other improvements the office will make to their web site.

The two paragraphs were added by Congressman Mike Honda of California, one of our champions of the use of technology to further transparency and civic engagement. John Wonderlich of Sunlight Foundation, Rob Pierson in Honda’s office, and I collaborated on this over a long period of time. Honda got involved in 2007 asking the Library to look into this and then in 2008 getting the paragraphs added to the bill markup.

So here they are:

Congressional Technology Coordination.-The House of Representatives needs a strategic and coordinated plan that will prepare for the future technology needs of the institution. A 2006 report commissioned by the Chief Administrative Officer and the Committee on House Administration, entitled Strategic Technology Road Map for the Ten Year Vision of Technology in the House of Representatives, provided a suggested structure for Information Technology evaluation and decision making. The Chief Administrative Officer, the Clerk, and the Sergeant at Arms are asked to prepare a report by June 30, 2009 on their efforts or plans to develop House-wide data-sharing standards; implement standard legislative document formats; address the increasing resource challenges of Member offices; and identify disparate systems throughout the institution that prevent it from taking advantage of economies of scale. [page 2]

and

Public Access to Legislative Data. There is support for enhancing public access to legislative documents, bill status, summary information, and other legislative data through more direct methods such as bulk data downloads and other means of no-charge digital access to legislative databases. The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, and Government Printing Office and the appropriate entities of the House of Representatives are directed to prepare a report on the feasibility of providing advanced search capabilities. This report is to be provided to the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate within 120 days of the release of Legislative Information System 2.0. [page 11]

According to an article in Wired: “In our web 2.0 world, we can empower the public by providing them with raw data that they can remix and reuse in new and innovative ways,” says Honda, who is vice chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch. “With these tools, the public can collaborate on projects that can help legislators to create better policies to address the pressing challenges facing our nation.” There’s also a good article at Mother Jones and a nice post by Tim O’Reilly.

The concept of bulk data downloads hasn’t been missed by many parts of the government. The Census Bureau and the Federal Elections Commission, for instance, are fantastic at sharing with the public as much as they can. In the latter case it is electronic versions of campaign contribution filings, which is obviously very important for preventing corruption. But, there are significant gaps in other areas of the government where a little legislating is necessary. Here we’re talking about information on bills in congress going back around two decades, and the information going forward.

The Library of Congress has a database of this information but they don’t share it with the public. Sharing it would mean that creating sites like GovTrack — and the various other sites that use data from GovTrack including OpenCongress and MAPLight.org — would be a little easier, but also a little more accurate. Right now GovTrack goes through a roundabout process to reverse-engineer the same information we are seeking from this database. Basically, we already have the information by scraping it off of thomas.loc.gov — we’d just rather get it directly rather than the way it is assembled now. So because I go through so much trouble to reverse-engineer the data I want, not so many things will change in an obvious way on GovTrack — it’ll just be that my life will be a little easier and the information will be a little more complete and up to date. But, you can expect to see other sites spring up doing new and interesting things with the information — ways of visualizing the congressional process that we couldn’t yet imagine.

The Government Printing Office is mentioned because of how they make legislative documents like the text of bills available to the public. PDFs and text-only versions are made available for free already. No problem there. But they have other files that would be useful to sites like GovTrack which they sell at ridiculously high subscription prices. Those files would make comparisons of bill text easier to produce (although GovTrack already has this feature, again by essentially going about it the hard way). If you think about it from the perspective that some bills go through Congress so fast no one has time to read them through, being able to apply technology to the process is so important, like to detect changes in the text of bills between versions to make it easier for people to get through it. This is what GPO is preventing by selling some of its files, rather than providing them to the public for free (which it is essentially mandated to do for most documents — why they exempt certain documents is not known).

Now, it’s not that the Library doesn’t necessarily *want* to share its database. It’s just that sharing it wasn’t a part of their mandate from Congress and they don’t want to upset Congress by stepping out of their mandate. The omnibus bill is an indication from the House to the Library that this would be something supported by Congress. (My understanding is that the Library has been seeking permission from Congress to do some of these things, probably in response to a previous push for this, but the omnibus legislation has been in the works concurrently.)

The Sunshine in Litigation Act requires that judges consider public health in deciding whether to release the results of litigation.

The bipartisan “Sunshine in Litigation Act� was prompted by dozens of cases in which hazards and threats to public health were not disclosed during court lawsuits or out of court settlements and subsequently resulted in additional fatalities, serious injuries and illnesses.

The Free Flow of Information Act deals with media figures’ handling of confidential sources:

Last month, a former USA Today reporter was held in contempt of court for refusing to reveal confidential sources cited in two articles written in 2002, and she is now facing fines of $500 to $5,000 a day. In recent years, dozens of reporters have been questioned by federal prosecutors about their sources.

The legislation is supported by a wide array of media organizations including the Newspaper Association of America, the Associated Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The New York Times Company, The Washington Post, the New England Press Association, the Vermont Press Association, and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

The Sunshine in Courtroom Act deals with cameras in the courts:

Federal courts lag behind all 50 state judiciaries, which have all allowed some form of audio or video coverage of court proceedings. Many Americans are unable to travel to witness some of the most important public arguments and actions of our Federal judiciary, including attending proceedings at the nation’s 13 appellate courts and the Supreme Court. The Sunshine in the Courtroom Act (S. 352), passed by the Committee today, would help increase public access through emerging technologies.