The Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives prepares and publishes the

United States Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...

, which is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. The Office was created in 1974 when the provisions of Title II, sec. 205, of , 93rd United States Congress, were enacted by , .

Appointment and duties

The counsel is appointed by the

Speaker of the House The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...

and must

prepare, and submit to the Committee on the Judiciary one title at a time, a complete compilation, restatement, and revision of the general and permanent laws of the United States which conforms to the understood policy, intent, and purpose of the Congress in the original enactments, with such amendments and corrections as will remove ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections both of substance and of form, separately stated, with a view to the enactment of each title as
positive law Positive laws ( la, links=no, ius positum) are human-made laws that oblige or specify an action. Positive law also describes the establishment of specific rights for an individual or group. Etymologically, the name derives from the verb ''to posit ...
."

The counsel takes each

Act of Congress An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called Public and private bills, private laws), or to the general public (Public and private bills, public laws). For a Bill (law) ...

that covers more than one subject, and makes the revisions indicated to each title of the

. The counsel also regularly reviews the United States Code and proposes new titles to be enacted as positive law (meaning that they would displace all prior statutes on the same subject and become the law itself). Some proposed titles are simply updates of U.S.C. titles that were previously codified as ''

prima facie ''Prima facie'' (; ) is a Latin expression meaning ''at first sight'' or ''based on first impression''. The literal translation would be 'at first face' or 'at first appearance', from the feminine forms of ''primus'' ('first') and ''facies'' (' ...

'' evidence of the statutory law but have not yet been enacted as positive law.1 USC 204(a) Other proposed titles collect the substance of all existing statutes on a particular subject from across the U.S.C. and the

Statutes at Large ''Statutes at Large'' is the name given to published collections or series of legislative Acts in a number of jurisdictions. The expression "statutes at large" was first used in the edition of Barker published in 1587. England and Great Britain ...

into a new title. The current counsel, Ralph V. Seep, was appointed by Speaker

John Boehner John Andrew Boehner ( ; born , 1949) is an American retired politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served 13 terms as the U.S. represe ...

, effective June 2, 2011.

References

External links

* * Law Revision Counsel 1974 establishments in Washington, D.C. {{US-law-stub