Statutes are laws passed by a legislature. In the United States, federal statutes, also known as acts, are laws enacted by Congress. Federal statutes begin as bills. Once a bill is approved by the U.S House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the President, the bill becomes a law.

 When a federal law is enacted by Congress, it is published in three different formats:

• First, every law passed by Congress is assigned a public law number. Each public law is published in a separate booklet or pamphlet known as a slip law.
• Second, all slip laws for a session of Congress are compiled in chronological order and published in the United States Statutes at Large.  These laws are referred to as session laws because they are organized according to which session of Congress the law was enacted.
• Finally, the statutes are organized by subject, indexed and published under a specific title in the United States Code (cited as U.S.C.). The USC is arranged into 50 titles, or subjects, and is reissued every six years (the USC is updated annually with supplements).

“Laws are like sausages—it’s better not to see them being made.”
—Otto von Bismarck

From an idea for a new law to its publication as a statute, the legislative process follows a tortuous route that is not easy to describe and is not always predictable. To greatly oversimplify a complex matter, we can say the process—on both the federal and the state level—begins with the introduction of a proposed law, known as a bill, into either the House or the Senate and follows this general sequence, which is explained through a series of nine videos from Congress.gov: 

1. Overview of the Legislative Process
2. Introduction and Referral of Bills
3. Committee Consideration
4. Calendars and Scheduling
5. House Floor
6. Senate Floor
7. Executive Business in the Senate
8. Resolving Differences 
9. Presidential Actions

How Our Laws Are Made" (House Document 110-49) provides a more detailed account of the legislative process. This informative brochure was originally prepared by Charles W. Johnson while he was Parliamentarian of the U.S. House of Representatives, then it was revised and updated in 2007 by John V. Sullivan, a more recent Parliamentarian.

How Does a Bill Become a Law? This charmingly illustrated tutorial explains how a proposed bill moves through Congress. Versions exist for "young learners" and for "grade school."

I'm Just a Bill is a popular animated cartoon short from the television series Schoolhouse Rock! that explains the legislative process through a bluesy song.

The official version of the codified federal statutes is the United States Code (U.S.C.). The print version of the U.S. Code is located in the Sycamore Library Library in Sycamore Hall. 

A citation of a federal statute has four pieces of information, including the title number of the Code, the version of the Code being cited, the section of the code for the particular statute, and the publication date for the text in which the statute was found. 

For example, in the following citation:

18 U.S.C. § 4001 (2024)

• "18" is the Title of the United States Code. Title 18 covers the topic of Crimes and Criminal Procedure.
• "U.S.C." is the abbreviation for the official version of the United States Code.
• "§ 4001" is the section of Title 18 in which the text of the relevant statute can be found.
• "2024" indicates the publication date of the United States Code volume in which the text of the statute was found. You should always cite the lates version of a statute unless you have a reason to be citing an earlier version of the law.

In addition to the print resources available at the Sycamore Library, federal statutes can be found on the Internet and in subscription databases available through UNT to members of the UNT community and to others who are accessing the databases on the UNT campus.

United States Code

Annotated Codes

Annotated codes are extremely helpful because they include all the features and tables of the U.S. Code as well as summaries of judicial decisions, regulations, and attorney general opinions relating to each statute.

There are two unofficial, annotated versions of the U.S. Code published by commercial vendors—the United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) and the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.). UNT has access to the annotated codes in the following formats: