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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.
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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The idea that in the US, on a veto override, the presiding officer of the chamber formally promulgates a law is not supported in the given source (which is a primary legal source and should, where possible, be avoided). In fact, both the Constitution and the section referenced state that the law takes effect by operation of law on veto override and is not required to be promulgated by any particular officer to take effect; instead, it should be "received by the Archivist of the United States", but it is not clear that this is a requirement for the law to take effect. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 16:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
When one searched "Public Law" on Wikipedia, it redirects to this page, rather than the page for Public law. While an Act of Congress is a public law, should it redirect to this page and not the page for the field of public law? I've also asked this question in the talk section of that page.
Please note, if one searched "Public law," it does redirect to the page for public law. It is only when both terms are capitalized. JapanOfGreenGables ( talk) 04:26, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
User:ItsPugle's move of this article a month ago reflects profound ignorance of what is an Act of Congress as well as Wikipedia rules on article titles.
It only took me about 10 minutes on Google to verify that the United States is the only country that uses that exact phrase to describe a legislative act. So there is nothing to disambiguate. Every other country with a Congress as its legislature uses some other phrase for enacted acts of the legislature, like "Law No. X" or "Republic Act."
Keep creating unnecessary work for other editors to clean up your edits because you were too lazy to do your homework and watch what happens to your editing privileges. -- Coolcaesar ( talk) 08:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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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.
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Act of Congress. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
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source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 15:37, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
The idea that in the US, on a veto override, the presiding officer of the chamber formally promulgates a law is not supported in the given source (which is a primary legal source and should, where possible, be avoided). In fact, both the Constitution and the section referenced state that the law takes effect by operation of law on veto override and is not required to be promulgated by any particular officer to take effect; instead, it should be "received by the Archivist of the United States", but it is not clear that this is a requirement for the law to take effect. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 16:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
When one searched "Public Law" on Wikipedia, it redirects to this page, rather than the page for Public law. While an Act of Congress is a public law, should it redirect to this page and not the page for the field of public law? I've also asked this question in the talk section of that page.
Please note, if one searched "Public law," it does redirect to the page for public law. It is only when both terms are capitalized. JapanOfGreenGables ( talk) 04:26, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
User:ItsPugle's move of this article a month ago reflects profound ignorance of what is an Act of Congress as well as Wikipedia rules on article titles.
It only took me about 10 minutes on Google to verify that the United States is the only country that uses that exact phrase to describe a legislative act. So there is nothing to disambiguate. Every other country with a Congress as its legislature uses some other phrase for enacted acts of the legislature, like "Law No. X" or "Republic Act."
Keep creating unnecessary work for other editors to clean up your edits because you were too lazy to do your homework and watch what happens to your editing privileges. -- Coolcaesar ( talk) 08:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)