> No 18 times. 27 total amendments with 1-10 all passing on December 15, 1791.
Fair correction.
> Those recent amendments are a minimum different laws.
Only in the sense that any new enactment is a new law, but in that sense no law can be updated in a way that preserves its identity as the same law. Which is not useful for the discussion of whether an old law has or hasn’t been updated, since by that definition updates to any law are impossible.
Lawyers and judges don’t exclusively use that sense any more than programmers view a software patch as changing the basic identity (beyond something like a version number) of the patched software program.
They do use that sense when they are referring to individual enactments by Congress, just like programmers refer to patches and patch releases as well as to the things which exist across many patch( release)s over time. Which sense is useful depends on context, and which sense is meant depends on a mixture of context and exact phrasing.
> If you want to call it one law then there’s either 2 federal laws in the US.
There are far more than 2 federal laws in the US, but far fewer than one per enactment except when using the sense of “a federal law” that specifically refers to each enactment.
For example, most federal tax legislation explicitly amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, which is still the official name of our federal tax code. Similarly, most immigration legislation amends the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1954 (I could have the year wrong), even more than 70 years later. The many “patch” laws enacted in the meantime all have their own identities via Public Law numbers and often a name, but they do update a specific identifiable underlying law without replacing it.
Other federal laws, like most annual appropriation and authorization bills, stand alone and are not routinely updated but have a finite duration of relevance. Common provisions are often carried forward from one iteration to the next, but they are re-enacted as part of each separate iteration.
And then there are the many parts of the federal legal landscape where the US Code is the official authoritative version instead of a mere convenience version as it is for things like the tax code and immigration law. Amendments to the directly authoritative parts of the US Code explicitly amend the US Code instead of a separately named law, so those directly authoritative parts of the US Code are themselves (whether each or collectively) a single federal law in the sense I’m discussing.
Yes, this stuff is complicated and messy in both the law and the software worlds.
> One needs to be ratified by the states and the others don’t.
Yes, constitutional amendments are laws (in one sense) that amend a law (in the other sense) and which states need to ratify, and regular Acts of Congress are laws (in the first sense) that may or may not amend one or more pre-existing laws (in the second sense) and which states do not need to ratify.
> Yes, constitutional amendments are laws (in one sense) that amend a law (in the other sense) and which states need to ratify, and regular Acts of Congress are laws (in the first sense) that may or may not amend one or more pre-existing laws (in the second sense) and which states do not need to ratify.
Yea, obviously we agree with what’s going on this is just a question of arbitrary definitions that don’t impact anything.
> Which is not useful for the discussion of whether an old law has or hasn’t been updated, since by that definition updates to any law are impossible.
It’s definitely easier work with the law based on the provided organizational structures with tax code being separate from family law etc. Yay, congress is doing something reasonably efficiently.
However, timing matters as making something illegal ex post facto is explicitly banned by the constitution etc. Further, in case of conflict newer laws win even without explicitly declaring the old laws invalid. So each bill is a meaningfully different law, and there’s in effect one law at any given moment after resolving those conflicts.
Net result three mutually contradictory but still useful definitions. But IMO organizational structure is by far the least meaningful one from a legal standpoint while being the most useful one from a practical standpoint.
Fair correction.
> Those recent amendments are a minimum different laws.
Only in the sense that any new enactment is a new law, but in that sense no law can be updated in a way that preserves its identity as the same law. Which is not useful for the discussion of whether an old law has or hasn’t been updated, since by that definition updates to any law are impossible.
Lawyers and judges don’t exclusively use that sense any more than programmers view a software patch as changing the basic identity (beyond something like a version number) of the patched software program.
They do use that sense when they are referring to individual enactments by Congress, just like programmers refer to patches and patch releases as well as to the things which exist across many patch( release)s over time. Which sense is useful depends on context, and which sense is meant depends on a mixture of context and exact phrasing.
> If you want to call it one law then there’s either 2 federal laws in the US.
There are far more than 2 federal laws in the US, but far fewer than one per enactment except when using the sense of “a federal law” that specifically refers to each enactment.
For example, most federal tax legislation explicitly amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, which is still the official name of our federal tax code. Similarly, most immigration legislation amends the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1954 (I could have the year wrong), even more than 70 years later. The many “patch” laws enacted in the meantime all have their own identities via Public Law numbers and often a name, but they do update a specific identifiable underlying law without replacing it.
Other federal laws, like most annual appropriation and authorization bills, stand alone and are not routinely updated but have a finite duration of relevance. Common provisions are often carried forward from one iteration to the next, but they are re-enacted as part of each separate iteration.
And then there are the many parts of the federal legal landscape where the US Code is the official authoritative version instead of a mere convenience version as it is for things like the tax code and immigration law. Amendments to the directly authoritative parts of the US Code explicitly amend the US Code instead of a separately named law, so those directly authoritative parts of the US Code are themselves (whether each or collectively) a single federal law in the sense I’m discussing.
Yes, this stuff is complicated and messy in both the law and the software worlds.
> One needs to be ratified by the states and the others don’t.
Yes, constitutional amendments are laws (in one sense) that amend a law (in the other sense) and which states need to ratify, and regular Acts of Congress are laws (in the first sense) that may or may not amend one or more pre-existing laws (in the second sense) and which states do not need to ratify.