Law of the United States
The law of the United States comprises many
levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is
the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal
government of the United States, as well as various civil liberties. The
Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of Acts of
Congress, treaties ratified by the Senate, regulations promulgated by the
executive branch, and case law originating from the federal judiciary. The
United States Code is the official compilation and codification of general and
permanent federal statutory law.
Federal law and treaties
Federal law and treaties, so long as they are
in accordance with the Constitution, preempt conflicting state and territorial
laws in the 50 U.S. states and in the territories. However, the scope of
federal preemption is limited because the scope of federal power is not
universal. In the dual sovereign system of American federalism (actually
tripartite because of the presence of Indian reservations), states are the
plenary sovereigns, each with their own constitution, while the federal
sovereign possesses only the limited supreme authority enumerated in the
Constitution.Indeed, states may grant their citizens broader rights than the
federal Constitution as long as they do not infringe on any federal
constitutional rights.
Thus U.S. law (especially the actual
"living law" of contract, tort, property, criminal, and family law
experienced by the majority of citizens on a day-to-day basis) consists
primarily of state law, which can and does vary greatly from one state to the
next.
At both the federal and state levels, with the
exception of the state of Louisiana, the law of the United States is largely
derived from the common law system of English law, which was in force at the
time of the American Revolutionary War. However, American law has diverged
greatly from its English ancestor both in terms of substance and procedure[16]
and has incorporated a number of civil law innovations
Levels of law
Federal law originates with the Constitution,
which gives Congress the power to enact statutes for certain limited purposes
like regulating interstate commerce. The United States Code is the official
compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal statutes.
Many statutes give executive branch agencies the power to create regulations,
which are published in the Federal Register and codified into the Code of
Federal Regulations. Regulations generally also carry the force of law under
the Chevron doctrine. Many lawsuits turn on the meaning of a federal statute or
regulation, and judicial interpretations of such meaning carry legal force
under the principle of stare decisis.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, federal
law traditionally focused on areas where there was an express grant of power to
the federal government in the federal Constitution, like the military, money,
foreign relations (especially international treaties), tariffs, intellectual
property (specifically patents and copyrights), and mail. Since the start of
the 20th century, broad interpretations of the Commerce and Spending Clauses of
the Constitution have enabled federal law to expand into areas like aviation,
telecommunications, railroads, pharmaceuticals, antitrust, and trademarks. In
some areas, like aviation and railroads, the federal government has developed a
comprehensive scheme that preempts virtually all state law, while in others,
like family law, a relatively small number of federal statutes (generally
covering interstate and international situations) interacts with a much larger
body of state law. In areas like antitrust, trademark, and employment law, there
are powerful laws at both the federal and state levels that coexist with each
other. In a handful of areas like insurance, Congress has enacted laws
expressly refusing to regulate them as long as the states have laws regulating
them (see, e.g., the McCarran–Ferguson Act).
Statutes
After the president signs a bill into law (or
Congress enacts it over the president's veto), it is delivered to the Office of
the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) where it is assigned a law number, and prepared for publication as a
slip law. Public laws, but not private laws, are also given legal statutory
citation by the OFR. At the end of each session of Congress, the slip laws are
compiled into bound volumes called the United States Statutes at Large, and
they are known as session laws. The Statutes at Large present a chronological
arrangement of the laws in the exact order that they have been enacted.
Public laws are incorporated into the United
States Code, which is a codification of all general and permanent laws of the
United States. The main edition is published every six years by the Office of
the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives, and cumulative
supplements are published annually. The U.S. Code is arranged by subject
matter, and it shows the present status of laws (with amendments already
incorporated in the text) that have been amended on one or more occasions.
Regulations
Congress often enacts statutes that grant
broad rulemaking authority to federal agencies. Often, Congress is simply too
gridlocked to draft detailed statutes that explain how the agency should react
to every possible situation, or Congress believes the agency's technical
specialists are best equipped to deal with particular fact situations as they
arise. Therefore, federal agencies are authorized to promulgate regulations.
Under the principle of Chevron deference, regulations normally carry the force
of law as long as they are based on a reasonable interpretation of the relevant
statutes.[41]
Regulations are adopted pursuant to the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Regulations are first proposed and
published in the Federal Register (FR or Fed. Reg.) and subject to a public
comment period. Eventually, after a period for public comment and revisions
based on comments received, a final version is published in the Federal
Register. The regulations are codified and incorporated into the Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR) which is published once a year on a rolling schedule.
Besides regulations formally promulgated under
the APA, federal agencies also frequently promulgate an enormous amount of
forms, manuals, policy statements, letters, and rulings. These documents may be
considered by a court as persuasive authority as to how a particular statute or
regulation may be interpreted (known as Skidmore deference), but are not
entitled to Chevron deference.