Talk:Act of Congress

Exclusivity?

Question: is the term "act of Congress" US-specific, or is it used in regards to other countries whose legislative bodies are called "Congress"es? --Brion

Per AP Stylebook, "act" should only be capitalized when used as part of the name of a specific piece of legislation. Otherwise, it's not a proper noun, so shouldn't be capitalized.

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Should the article mention how the phrase "an Act of Congress" can mean that it takes a lot of work to allow something to happen? Jason McHuff 04:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

If it's a term widely-used to describe something that takes a lot of time\work to happen, then yes, it has a place in the article. 84.108.245.222 09:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Approval by Congress

The article doesn't say what sort of majority is needed - is it 51%, 50% + 1 congressman or 2/3? Also, is the majority needed to approve an act the same in both houses of Congress and what happens if the House of Reps doesn't approve an act but the Senate does? 84.108.245.222 09:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

• The majority needed for any Act of Congress is a majority of each house on the same bill. If only one house passes, but the other house doesn't, then the bill dies. A majority is neither 51% nor 50% +1. It is any number greater than 50%. Thus, for the full Senate, a majority is 51% (which is >50% of 100). For the full House of Representatives, a majority is 218 (>50% of 435).—Markles 03:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • It's a majority of those present (presuming a quorum), not a majority of the full House (435) or Senate (100), that is required for a bill to pass in the House or Senate. So a bill could pass the House (say) with a vote of 200-199. In the Senate, the Vice President can break a tie, so a bill could pass on a vote of (say) 45-45 if the Vice President then votes in favor of the bill, breaking the tie. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
    • I was thinking someone might wanna incorporate that into the article, as that's where people will be looking for this sort of information. :) 84.108.245.222 22:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
      • O, 84.108.245.222, it's time for you to step up. Set up a user account and make the edits yourself. That's what make Wikipedia what it is. Be Bold!—Markles
        • That was me, I'm already an admin, I just like to edit as an IP from time to time and see what it looks like from over there. :) Yonatan ^talk 09:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

naming an act

I think it might be useful to talk about how an Act recieves a name. Are these names official or just established by popular use. I would add the information, but I don't know and can't find it. If someone knows, I think it would add to the article. Piratejosh85 (talk) 07:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Generally every Act of Congress will have an official Long title, and Short title. An additional acronym, may be included in the legislation as well. An example is PUBLIC LAW 111–5 where the long title is "An act making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes." and the short title is "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009." Congress used both terms in writing the bill. Awg1010 (talk) 07:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Style

I've reverted much of the recent edit regarding the capitalisation of "Act"; after discussion here and here, it seems that this is quite contentious, at least in so far as regards the UK usage, and I feel we probably ought to get consensus about what people want for the American usage. (Mainly, I'm distinctly unhappy with the idea that the article had explicit footnotes stating stylistic opinions as fact.)

So, any thoughts on whether it should be "Act of Congress" or "act of Congress"? Shimgray | talk | 18:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverting an edit in the middle of discussion and imposing your personal opinion despite an overwhelming list of sources speaking against it is not a good idea. You have consistently ignored the clear consensus of the dictionary sources listed in the discussions linked to above.--Espoo (talk) 08:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The middle of what discussion? What sources? Discussions happening at other articles do not preclude changes here. In addition, your edit and your contribution here do not address the point about having the silly footnote. -Rrius (talk) 10:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

1) I was responding to an editor which can be seen by the indentation, so it's enough that s/he knows which discussion. In addition, the editor provided links to those discussions, so I'm assuming you just didn't see the links. 2) The sources are the ones you deleted. 3) The footnote is not silly and it is common in other articles to provide a footnote about variant spellings of the lemma. Often these explanations do not have sources, so I really don't understand why you want to get rid of this explanation of the different spellings and the relevant sources. You commented This capitalization note does not belong here. If it is important to the topic, make it a new section; if not, leave it out. I feel it definitely belongs here to prevent similar future attempts to impose the uppercase spelling Act and future edit wars and future unnecessary discussions of personal spelling preferences. On the other hand, the well sourced info I provided is in my opinion not important enough to warrant an entire section in the article. If you feel differently, go ahead and make a new section, but please do not remove valuable sourced information from WP and please concentrate removal efforts on the huge amounts of unsourced information. --Espoo (talk) 11:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I asked what discussion because I didn't want to assume that you were suggesting no one could change this article while a discussion was happening elsewhere. I then addressed the point about discussions elsewhere not precluding editing here. The question about sources was to point out that contribution assumed editors at large would know what you were talking about and to stand as an invitation to explain your position here. As to the bit about the footnote, I think the usage "Act of Congress" is so widespread that addressing capitalization in the body would not be undue. It would make the most sense in a "Usage" section which would also discuss the demotic use of the term "act of Congress". On the other hand, merely putting in a footnote because you are afraid others will change the capitalization is silly. Other options exist, such as commented-out text, text that appears only at the top of the edit page, or a notice on this talk page. -Rrius (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The footnote is your personal stylistic opinion, and even were we to adopt your stylistic preference, the fact we are having these discussions should make it obvious that it is a contested opinion and not a self-evident fact worthy of this kind of note. Please do not re-add it without some consensus to do so - some consensus among editors, since the inclusion of this sort of discursive material is ultimately an editorial one. Shimgray | talk | 00:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You keep claiming that this is a personal opinion despite the reputable sources provided, which clearly show the footnote is not a personal opinion but in fact a summary of those sources. It's not a good idea at all to remove valuable sourced information from WP. Let's try to find out what parts of the footnote you actually object to by breaking it down into parts:

1. The terms "act of Congress" and "act" are common, not proper nouns.
2. there is a tradition of capitalization of some common nouns related to legislation and government by Congress and members of the legal profession
3. most American (and UK) dictionaries and encyclopedias show that the most widespread modern usage is lowercase (unless used as part of the name of a particular act) by listing only lowercase or by listing the uppercase usage second, as an alternative usage.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
4. Modern dictionaries do not impose rules and instead describe current usage in reputable sources. --Espoo (talk) 09:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I am going to state for the record that I disagree with you, and that I feel you are on a personal crusade to impose your personal opinions over stylistic matters on articles ignoring strong sentiment to the contrary, but I just don't feel strongly enough about this to justify continuing to argue over it. Shimgray | talk | 19:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that the correct position is this: "Act of Congress" is a legal term of art. As far as I can see, the correct usage of a legal term of art is determined by the legislature concerned (or at least by legislatures, courts and lawyers in general), and not by the general public, which seems to be the argument that is being employed in favour of using the lower case capitalisation, i.e. "dictionaries report the most common usage" (which could be one which is technically wrong).

For this reason, as far as I can see, the correct capitalisation is upper-case. I have made some amendments to the article. James500 (talk) 13:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

One of WP's main policies is to base editing on secondary sources. Any inferences from primary sources, especially when they contradict almost all major encyclopedias and dictionaries is blatant WP:OR. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#act (statute) --Espoo (talk) 12:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The outcome of this discussion was, IIRC, that there was no consensus to make these changes. James500 (talk) 22:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

No legal credentials

I have been giving this matter some thought, and I have come to the conclusion that the dictionaries etc cited as sources for this have no legal credentials and are not therefore qualified to determine the correct use of a legal term of art as a legal term of art. To put it simply, they are not reliable sources. In this context a reliable source would be something like Black's Law Dictionary. Unfortunately I don't have a copy that dictionary, but the US Code, looking at the text from Cornell, appears to me to capitalize the word Act, and I think that is a better starting point than the dubious sources that have been preferred. James500 (talk) 22:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)