Statement of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte Markup of H.R. 2830, “A Bill to Make Technical Amendments to Update Statutory References To Certain Provisions Classified to Title 2, U.S. Code”

Chairman Goodlatte: The Office of the Law Revision Counsel has an ongoing responsibility under section 285b of title 2 of the United States Code to maintain the United States Code and assist the House Judiciary Committee in the revision and codification of Federal statutes. In order to maintain and improve the United States Code, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel must occasionally undertake editorial reclassification projects to reorganize areas of law that have outgrown their original boundaries, or to eliminate organizational units that are no longer efficient. The Office assures us that the decision to transfer provisions in the United States Code is not undertaken lightly. After careful study, the Law Revision Counsel recently identified certain organizational deficiencies in the Code that needed to be corrected, and accordingly, undertook the necessary changes. As a result, three recent editorial reclassification efforts are reflected in the first three bills we will mark up today. The Office of the Law Revision Counsel has carefully prepared these “reclassification” bills and submitted them to the Committee for our consideration. The purpose of the first bill we will mark up is to update citations in laws classified to title 2 of the United States Code. H.R. 2830 will amend these citations to accurately reflect the new location of the corresponding provisions in the U.S. Code in light of the recent editorial reclassification of title 2. I want to thank Ranking Member Conyers (D-Mich.) for sponsoring this bill along with me today. Title 2 of the U.S. Code includes all of the laws governing Congress and the Legislative branch. For example, it contains laws pertaining to congressional gifts and travel, representational allowances, the student loan repayment program, compensation of Representatives, Senators and staff, and the preference for the purchase of American-made goods. The reorganization of title 2 (for the purposes of the online version of the Code) took place on February 1, 2014. Because chapters 3 and 4 of title 2 far outgrew their original boundaries, the Office of Law Revision Counsel reorganized these two chapters into eleven new chapters in order to set forth more clearly the provisions relating to the House of Representatives and the Senate. No statutory text was altered by the reorganization; the provisions were merely transferred from one place in title 2 to another. As a result of the reclassification, title 2 now better exhibits the laws governing congressional pay and benefits, ethics, leadership and administration, just to name a few. It is important to note that the Law Revision Counsel advises us that the short-term inconvenience of adjusting to new Code citations is greatly outweighed by the benefit of much needed long-term improvements in the organizational structure in the United States Code. Further, to eliminate any confusion, the Office provides a comprehensive guide to the old and new code citations on its website: uscode.house.gov. With enactment of this legislation, the citations in our public laws that refer to Code sections altered by the reorganization will be updated to reflect the changes made to title 2. For the foregoing reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this important bill. Click here to learn more about today’s markup.