Making laws
statute
A law passed by a legislature and signed into effect. Distinct from a regulation, which an agency writes, and from a court decision, which interprets both.
In full
Statute is the formal word for an enacted law. Federal statutes begin as bills, are numbered as public laws, and are organized into the United States Code. A statute outranks any regulation written under it, and an agency that exceeds what its statute authorizes can have the regulation struck down. Statutory means created by statute, as opposed to constitutional or common law.
Also written as: statutory
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A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.