It has become such a cliché that the civics class rendition of how a bill becomes law bears only superficial resemblance to real legislative practice that even Saturday Night Live is in on the joke (after you’ve watched that clip, see our executive orders chart).
The lawmaking process does not end with the president’s signature, contrary to the tidy story presented in civics books.
Instead, the passage of the law might well be considered the foundation, not the end of lawmaking.
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) vividly demonstrates the point.
The FDCA, which President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law in 1938, revamped the legal authority for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
...The (1938) FDCA itself was 19 pages long and contained about 11,700 words, as printed in the United States Statues at Large.
In the 2014 edition of the CFR, the regulations associated with the FDCA comprised about 2,180,000 words.
The FDCA, which President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law in 1938, revamped the legal authority for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In the nearly 80 years since, the FDA has built on the foundation of the FDCA and its amendments a tower of regulations, each of which has the force of law.
With RegData, we can size up this accumulation of regulatory law.
RegData counts the number of words and individual regulatory restrictions—words and phrases that identify a specific mandatory or prohibited activity—in each part-level division of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). ...The (1938) FDCA itself was 19 pages long and contained about 11,700 words, as printed in the United States Statues at Large.
In the 2014 edition of the CFR, the regulations associated with the FDCA comprised about 2,180,000 words.
About 130,000 new words were added in the previous ten years..."
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