Difference between act and statute

Answer 1

What's the difference between an act, a statute and a law?

There's no cut and dried answer, but a good way to think about it is this:

•Act: a bill passed by both houses of Congress that has become law. Acts can be published as Slip Laws or "newly enacted legislation"; see Publishing the Law. Acts aren't published together, but individually. Once published in Statutes at Large, they're the same as a statute.

Statute: A law enacted by a legislature. "Statute" and "session law" can be used interchangably. Statutes are published in United States Statutes at Large; see Publishing the Law. However, Statutes at Large isn't cumulative - each volume represents a particular legislative session.

Note: Because electronic access to laws allows for immediate updates to the Statutes at Large, the forgoing distinction will eventually not be necessary and is already pretty blurry.

•Law: The body of rules and principles governing the affairs of a community. Laws would appear in the U.S. Code; see Publishing the Law. Unlike Statutes at Large, a law stays in the U.S. Code as long as it remains in force. Therefore, in a limited sense, each edition of the U.S. Code is cumulative because it contains all the currently valid law for the United States, regardless of when it became law.

The benefit of differentiating between acts, statutes and laws this way is that it allows you to associate a particular publication with a particular term, thus clarifying your research tasks. If you need the law, go to the U.S. Code. If you need the act as passed, go to either the Slip Laws or the Statutes at Large~