Preparation of Slip Laws from

Hand-Enrolled Legislation

The National Archives and Records Administration may not make any editorial changes in 

the content o f a statute, no matter how minor, including spelling or punctuation changes.

The National Archives and Records Administration may make changes in typeface and type 

style, and other such changes that do not alter the content o f a statute.

November 29, 1989

M e m o r a n d u m O pin ion f o r t h e A r c h iv is t o f t h e U n ited S tates

This memorandum is in response to the request of your office for our 

opinion concerning whether the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) may make editorial corrections, such as spelling or 

punctuation changes, in preparing hand-enrolled legislation for publication as a slip law. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that: (1) 

NARA may not make any editorial changes in the content of a statute, no 

matter how minor, including spelling or punctuation changes; but (2) 

NARA may make changes in typeface and type style, and other such 

changes that do not alter the content of a statute.

Your office has also requested advice as to how it should prepare a slip 

law when portions of the hand-enrolled legislation are illegible or 

ambiguous. As explained more fully below, we conclude that NARA has 

no authority to reconstruct or interpret illegible statutory text. Accordingly, we believe that the best procedure would be for NARA: (1) to typeset all unambiguous portions of the law and (2) to photograph into the 

slip law any illegible portions.

I. Background

After a bill has been passed by both Houses of Congress, it is “enrolled” 

for presentation to the President pursuant to Article I, Section 7, Clause 

2 of the Constitution. Under the normal procedures, enrollment involves 

printing the final text of the bill, including any changes made by amendments, on parchment or other suitable paper. 1 U.S.C. §§ 106, 107. The 

enrollment of the bill is supervised by the Clerk of the House of Representatives or the Secretary of the Senate, depending upon the House in

353
which the bill originated. When the number of amendments is large, this 

process can be quite complicated inasmuch as each of the amendments 

“must be set out in the enrollment exactly as agreed to, and all punctuation must be in accord with the action taken.” Edward F. Willett, Jr., Esq., 

Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, How Our Laws

Are Made, H.R. Doc. No. 158, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 43 (1985). In addition 

to assembling the text from the various amendments, the Clerk or 

Secretary, in enrolling a bill, proofreads the text for spelling errors and 

other technical mistakes. Serious technical errors that are discovered are 

often corrected by means of a concurrent resolution ordering the Clerk 

or the Secretary to make the corrections to the enrolled bill. Charles 

Tiefer, Congressional Practice and Procedure: A Reference, Research,

and Legislative Guide 249 (1989); see, e.g., S. Con. Res. 79, 99th Cong., 

1st Sess., 99 Stat. 1962 (1985); H.R. Con. Res. 340, 98th Cong., 2d Sess., 98 

Stat. 3480 (1984); S. Con. Res. 154, 98th Cong., 2d Sess., 98 Stat. 3518 

(1984). The Clerk or Secretary, however, will generally correct very minor 

errors, such as obvious spelling mistakes, without the passage of a concurrent resolution.

Once the bill has been enrolled, it is sent to the appropriate congressional authorities for approved. In the House, enrolled bills are first sent 

to the Committee on House Administration. H.R. Doc. No. 158 at 43. If the 

Committee finds the printing to be accurate, the Chairman attaches a 

note to this effect and forwards the bill to the Speaker for signature. Id.

In the Senate, the Secretary o f the Senate examines the printed bill for 

accuracy before forwarding it for signature to the President of the Senate 

or the President pro tempore. Robert U. Goehlert & Fenton S. Martin, 

Congress and Law-Making: Researching the Legislative Process 38 (2d 

ed. 1989). After the enrolled bill has been signed by both the Speaker of 

the House and the President o f the Senate, it is then presented to the 

President. If the bill is approved by the President, an exact photoprint of 

the enrolled bill is sent to NARA,1 which then forwards the bill to the 

Public Printer for preparation o f the slip law. 1 U.S.C. § 106a; 44 U.S.C. § 

710. The Public Printer (“GPO”) is required to print an “accurate” preliminary copy of the law, which is then sent to NARA “for revision.” 44 U.S.C. 

§711. NARA has interpreted this latter provision as allowing it only to 

correct errors made by GPO in printing the preliminary copy; NARA does 

not make editorial changes to the text as received from the President. 

After making any corrections that are necessary to ensure that the text 

conforms to that of the original bill signed by the President, NARA adds 

notations giving the public or private law number, legal citations, and 

other such ancillary information, and then returns the preliminary copy 

to GPO, which inserts these corrections and then prints the required

1 By regulation, NARA has delegated its responsibilities for preparing slip laws to the Office o f the 

Federal Register, which is a component o f NARA. 1 C FR §§ 2.3(a), 2 5(b) (1989).

354
number of slip laws. 44 U.S.C. §§ 709, 711. These slip laws are “competent 

evidence” of the Acts of Congress “without any further proof or authentication thereof.” 1 U.S.C. § 113.

The issues addressed in this memorandum arise from Congress’ occasional departure from the normal process of preparing printed enrollments of bills before presenting them to the President. Until recently the 

printing requirement was waived only rarely. Congress waived the requirement at the end of the second session of the 54th Congress, see 29 Stat. 

app. 17 (1897), and again at the end of the second session of the 70th 

Congress, see H.R. Con. Res. 59, 70th Cong., 2d Sess., 45 Stat. 2398 (1929). 

Thereafter, Congress does not appear to have dispensed with a printed 

enrollment until 1982. See H.R. Con. Res. 436, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., 96 Stat. 

2678 (1982). In the 1982 case, Congress passed a concurrent resolution 

waiving the printing requirement for certain bills for the remainder of the 

session and authorizing the enrollment of the bills in “such form as may be 

certified by the Committee on House Administration to be a truly enrolled 

joint resolution.” Id. A similar waiver was authorized by concurrent resolution in 1984. See H.R. Con. Res. 375, 98th Cong., 2d Sess., 98 Stat. 3519 

(1984). In recent years, Congress has tended simply to pass a new statute 

specifically designed to waive the normal enrollment requirements for 

particular statutes or for specified periods of time. See, e.g., Pub. L. No. 99- 

463, 100 Stat. 1184 (1986); Pub. L. No. 99-188, 99 Stat. 1183 (1985).

The waiver of the normal requirement of preparing a printed enrollment of a bill before it is presented to the President has produced a number of problems in connection with the preparation of slip laws. The 

hand-enrolled bills are often hastily put together, include a number of 

mistakes, and contain handwritten portions that may be unclear or illegible. Under the ordinary procedures, these errors generally would have 

been caught and corrected, either by concurrent resolution or in the 

enrollment process, before the bill was presented to the President. With 

the hand enrollments, however, bills cannot be proofread until after they 

have already been approved by the President. Although the enrollment 

waivers made during the 1982, 1984, and 1985 sessions did not expressly 

provide for post-enactment enrollment, the House Enrolling Clerk did in 

fact supervise the typesetting of the hand-enrolled bills after enactment, 

using the same standards, including corrections of misspellings and other 

nonsubstantive errors, that are used during the normal pre-enactment 

enrolling process. At the time, NARA was unaware that these changes 

were being made, and the typeset copies of the enrolled bills, which 

included such changes, were processed into slip laws.

In the spring of 1986, it came to NARA’s attention that the House 

Enrolling Clerk had been making minor editorial changes in the process 

of supervising the typesetting of hand-enrolled legislation. Later that 

year, when NARA received a typeset copy of Pub. L. No. 99-509, 100 Stat. 

1874 (1986), and noted that it contained such changes, NARA requested

355
that the House Enrolling Clerk remove the “corrections” that had been 

made. The Clerk agreed to do so. On a subsequent occasion, however, the 

House Enrolling Clerk refused to remove the corrections, and NARA 

itself had the relevant portions typeset so as to conform to the handenrolled bill that had been presented to the President. See Pub. L. No. 99- 

570, 100 Stat. 3207 (1986).

On subsequent occasions when the printing requirements were waived, 

Congress attempted to mitigate the problems associated with hand 

enrollment by expressly providing that, subsequent to approval by the 

President, a printed enrollment of the bill would be prepared, signed by 

the presiding officers of both Houses, and transmitted to the President 

for his “certification” that the printed enrollment was a correct printing 

o f the hand enrollment. See, e.g., Pub. L. No. 100-454, § 2, 102 Stat. 1914, 

1914-15 (1988); Pub. L. No. 100-203, § 8004, 101 Stat. 1330, 1330-282 to 

1330-238 (1987); Pub. L. No. 100-202, § 101(n), 101 Stat. 1329, 1329-432 to 

1329-433 (1987). In the process of preparing a printed enrollment, the 

House Enrolling Clerk was specifically authorized to make “corrections 

in spelling, punctuation, indentation, type face, and type size and other 

necessary stylistic corrections to the hand enrollment.” See, e.g., Pub. L. 

No. 100-454, § 2(a)(2), 102 Stat. 1914 (1988). In the case of each such 

statute, the President authorized NARA to make the determination as to 

whether the printed enrollments were “correct printings of the hand 

enrollments.” See 53 Fed. Reg. 50,373 (1988); 53 Fed. Reg. 2816 (1988). 

Finally, these Acts each specifically provided that, after certification, the 

printed enrollment was to be used instead of the hand enrollment in 

order to prepare the slip law, and that the printed enrollment was to be 

considered for all purposes as the original enrollment.

NARA has sought our advice concerning when and to what extent any 

technical changes may be made to the text of a bill that has already been 

enacted into law. NARA confronts this question in two different contexts:

(1) whether changes can be made by NARA or the House Enrolling Clerk 

when there is no post-enactment certification procedure; and (2) when 

there is such a procedure, whether NARA should, pursuant to its delegated authority, certify as “correct” post-enactment enrollments that differ in certain respects from the hand enrollment. Finally, NARA seeks 

advice concerning how to prepare slip laws when portions of the handenrolled legislation are illegible.

II. Discussion

A. Printing procedures when Congress has waived normal enrollment

requirements without providing for post-enactment enrollment

When there is no statute authorizing a post-enactment certification 

procedure, we think that it is clear that no changes may be made to the

356
text of a hand-enrolled statute in the course of processing it into a slip 

law. The simple reason for this conclusion is that the statutory scheme 

regulating the printing of slip laws, as outlined above, does not allow for 

alterations of the text of new laws. By statute, NARA receives the originals, 1 U.S.C. § 106a, sends a copy to GPO, 44 U.S.C. § 710, and GPO is 

required to print an “accurate" preliminary copy of the law, 44 U.S.C. § 

711 (emphasis added).

This preliminary copy is then further proofread by NARA, which sends 

the copy back to GPO with any corrections and with the appropriate 

ancillary information to be inserted in the margins.2

Furthermore, under the normal statutory scheme the House Enrolling 

Clerk has no role whatsoever in the printing of laws that have already 

been enacted. Pursuant to 1 U.S.C. § 106a, NARA receives the original 

copy of the statute, not from the House Enrolling Clerk, but either directly from the White House (if the bill was approved) or directly from the 

Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate (if the bill became 

law without the President’s approval).3 Accordingly, under the conventional scheme, there is no statutory authorization for a procedure whereby the House Enrolling Clerk supervises the typesetting of a bill that has 

already been enacted into law, makes editorial changes, and then forwards it to NARA for printing. Thus, in situations where Congress has 

merely waived the enrolling requirements of 1 U.S.C. §§ 106 & 107 without providing for a post-enactment enrollment procedure, NARA clearly 

should use only the original hand enrollments in the preparation of the 

slip laws.

2 We agree with NARA that 44 U.S.C § 711, which states that the preliminary copy is to be sent to NARA 

“for revision,” does not authorize NARA to make editorial changes to the text of the original copy o f the 

statute, rather, NARA corrects only errors made by GPO in the course of printing the preliminary copy. 

The phrase “for revision" originated in the Act o f Mar. 9,1868, ch. 22, § 2,15 Stat. 40, the relevant portion 

of which was subsequently codified, as amended, in 44 U S C § 711 The 1868 Act provided that, rather 

than receiving copies o f all new laws from the Secretary of the Senate (which was the pnor practice, see

Act of June 25,1864, ch 155, § 7,13 Stat 184,185-86), the congressional printer would receive a “correct 

copy” directly from the Secretary o f State (who was at that time charged with preserving the originals), 

and the printer would then prepare an accurate preliminary copy to be sent to the Secretary of State “for 

revision.” The author o f the 1868 Act, Senator Anthony, made clear that this procedure was designed to 

ensure that the printed slip laws would carefully match the originals

[Slip laws] have been heretofore furnished by the Secretary o f the Senate and the Clerk of 

the House o f Representatives. This bill provides that they shall be furnished hereafter from 

the rolls of the State Department, so that they may be perfectly authentic and coiTect There 

have been some errors heretofore, necessarily, in furnishing the laws without taking them 

from the rolls.

Cong Globe, 40th Cong , 2d Sess 1126 (1868) (emphasis added) In light o f this emphasis on authenticity and faithfulness to the original copy, we believe that the “for revision" language o f section 711 should 

be construed only as permitting NARA to correct errors made by GPO in the course of preparing the preliminary copy.

3 We recognize that, under long-accepted procedures, the photoprints for the slip law are generally 

made directly from the enrolled bill before it is sent to the President. This is a statutorily acceptable procedure only because the photoprints o f the enrolled bill are in all respects identical to the copy presented to the President and subsequently delivered to NARA under 1 U S.C § 106a

357
B. Printing procedures when Conqress has provided for postenactment

enrollment

Under the post-enactment certification procedures that have been 

used to date, the task of making minor editorial corrections to the handenrolled statutes has been assigned to the Clerk of the House of 

Representatives. See Pub. L. No. 100-454, § 2(a), 102 Stat. 1914 (1988); 

Pub. L. No. 100-203, § 8004(a), 101 Stat. 1330, 1330-282 (1987); Pub. L. No. 

100-202, § 101(n)(l) & (2), 101 Stat. 1329, 1329-432 (1987). Under these 

procedures, the subsequent printed enrollment is presented to the 

President, not for his plenary review, but merely for his “certification” 

that the subsequent enrollment is a correct printing.

We believe that this procedure fails to provide the plenary right of 

review afforded to the President by the Presentment Clause and thus that 

these post-enactment certification proceedings are constitutionally 

defective.4 In INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 952 (1983), the Supreme Court 

held that every legislative act of the Congress must be presented to the 

President pursuant to Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. Because the 

House Enrolling Clerk’s actions in making editorial emendations to a law 

that has already been enacted is a legislative act, it must be subject to the 

presentment requirement of the Constitution.

There can be no doubt that drafting and amending statutory language 

are quintessential legislative tasks. Although many minor changes to 

statutes may appear too insignificant to be of practical import, we discern no principled basis for concluding that “minor” revisions of the text 

of statutes should be classified as anything other than a legislative activity. To conclude otherwise would be to suggest, contrary to the plain 

teaching of Chadha, that “minor” changes in the wording of statutes 

could be made by Congress other than through the Article I procedures. 

See Chadha, 462 U.S. at 954 n.18 (“There is no provision [in the 

Constitution] allowing Congress to repeal or amend laws by other than 

legislative means pursuant to [a]rt. I.”).

Indeed, in this regard, we believe it is significant that, although codification and revision of statutes is often expressly intended not to be of any 

substantive significance, see, e.g., S. Rep. No. 1621, 90th Cong., 2d Sess.

4 We believe that the issue o f the constitutionality o f this procedure is distinct from the question of 

whether a court would be willing to receive the evidence necessary to permit a challenge to a statute that 

had been altered in the course o f being printed in accordance with this procedure. Cf. Field v Clark, 143 

U S 649,669-72 (1892) (noting that, although “[t]here is no authority in .. the secretary of state to receive 

and cause to be published, as a legislative act, any bill not passed by congress," a court would nonetheless not receive evidence questioning the authenticity o f a statute that was enrolled, attested to, and 

deposited in the public archives); see also Hans A. Lande, Due Process of Lawmaking, 55 Neb. L Rev 

197, 243 (1976) (“We do not assume that a law has been constitutionally made merely because a court 

will not set it aside ...”) We express no view as to the latter question of whether a court would be willing to receive evidence concerning, and to a b d ica te a challenge to, a statute that was altered in the 

course o f being printed.

358
2-3 (1968), reprinted in 1968 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4438, 4439-40 (enactment into 

positive law of title 44 of U.S. Code not intended to make any substantive 

changes), such revised codifications have never been considered to be 

conclusive evidence of the law unless they have first been enacted into 

positive law by Congress. See Pub. L. No. 80-278, 61 Stat. 633 (1947) (unenacted titles of U.S. Code are only “prima facie” evidence of the law), 

codified as amended at 1 U.S.C. § 204 (1988);5 cf United States v. Welden,

377 U.S. 95, 99 n.4 (1964) (“[A] ‘change of arrangement’ [in a statute] made 

by a codifier without the approval of Congress ... should be given no 

weight.”).6 In short, we believe that even a “minor” act of Congress is still 

an act of Congress, and a minor amendment is still an amendment.7

Accordingly, any attempt to alter the content of a statute by means of 

a procedure that does not afford the President the full review provided by 

the Presentment Clause would be unconstitutional. Therefore, should 

NARA ever again be required to determine and certify whether a subsequent printed enrollment is a correct printing of a hand-enrolled law, it 

should refuse to issue the certification if any change has been made to 

the content of the statute.

We do not believe, however, that changes in typeface, type style or the 

like are appropriately considered legislative acts. There is an important 

difference between altering the content of a law — i.e. changing the actual 

words and punctuation that make up the statute — and merely printing 

the statute in a different type size from that used when it was presented 

to the President. The former may well affect the meaning of the statute, 

whereas the latter will not. The Constitution is concerned with the content and composition of legislation, not with the printing standards

5 Because the unenacted codifications are only pnma facie evidence o f the law, they may not prevail 

over the authentic Statutes at Large in the event of a conflict between the two. American Bank & Trust

Co v. Dallas County, 463 U.S 855, 864 n.8 (1983); Stephan v United States, 319 U.S. 423, 426 (1943).

6 It appears that on only one bnef occasion has Congress ever permitted a revised codification to serve 

as conclusive evidence of the law See Act of Mar 2, 1877, ch. 82, § 4, 19 Stat. 268, 269 (new edition of 

revised statutes would constitute “legal and conclusive evidence of the laws") In the following year, 

however, Congress amended this statute to omit the words “and conclusive” and to provide that the use 

of the new edition o f the Revised Statutes “shall not preclude reference to, nor control, in case o f any 

discrepancy, the effect o f any onginal act as passed by Congress.” Act of Mar. 9, 1878, ch 26, 20 Stat 27 

At any rate, the new edition of the Revised Statutes did not involve any alterations of statutory language; 

the revision commissioner was given no authority to makes any changes to the text o f the First edition of 

the Revised Statutes (which had been enacted into positive law), except as authonzed by formal amendments. See Act o f Mar 2, 1877, § 2, 19 Stat. 268, 268-69 (outlining powers and duties of commissioner), 

see also Rev. Stat. at v (2d ed. 1878) (“The commissioner was not clothed with power to change the substance or to alter the language of the existing edition of the Revised Statutes, nor could he correct any 

errors or supply any omissions therein except as authonzed by the several statutes o f amendment.”)

7 The conclusion that there is no such thing as a “de minimis” change to a statute’s text is further supported by examining some o f the “minor” changes that have been made to statutes under the post-certification procedures that have been used to date For example, in the course of typesetting and “correcting” Pub L. No. 100-203, § 4113(a)(1)(B), the enrolling clerk changed a section reference in the statute 

from “(F)” to “(E)”. See 101 Stat 1330-151 & n.52 This was itself an error; shortly thereafter Congress by 

statute ordered that the “(E)” be changed back to an “(F)” See Pub. L No 100-360, § 411(a)(3)(B)(iii), 

102 Stat 683, 768 (1988).

359
whereby that content is reproduced for public consumption.8 Thus, 

NARA is at liberty to make appropriate changes in typeface or type style 

of a statute.

C. Printing procedures where portions of the statute are illegible

NARA has also requested advice as to how slip laws should be prepared when portions of the hand-enrolled legislation are illegible. In light 

of the above discussion concerning the legal limitations on the modification or correction of statutory text, we do not believe that NARA possesses any authority to “interpret” illegible or ambiguous text. If a portion 

of the statute simply cannot be read, NARA has no power to reconstruct 

the provision in the way that strikes it as most sensible. Nor may NARA 

rely on the House Enrolling Clerk or congressional committees to interpret indecipherable language; such a practice could allow for congressional alteration of statutory text without following the Article I, Section 

7 procedure. In short, while NARA may typeset any handwritten portions 

that are legible, it may not interpret and then typeset provisions that are 

indecipherable.

The only remaining question concerns how NARA should publish the 

illegible portions. In the past, NARA has simply inserted blanks and 

dropped a footnote indicating that the text was not legible. See, e.g., Pub. 

L. No. 100-203, § 4051(a), 101 Stat. 1330, 1330-93 & n.32a (1987). On at 

least one such occasion, Congress clarified the matter by passing a 

statute that supplied the missing language. See Pub. L. No. 100-360, 

§ 411(a)(3)(C), 102 Stat. 683, 768 (1988). In our view, however, the use of 

blanks does not best comply with NARA’s statutory responsibilities. As 

noted earlier, the statutory procedure for printing emphasizes the publication of a slip law that is an “accurate” copy of the original. Where a portion of a new law cannot be typeset because it is illegible, we believe that 

the statutory requirements o f accuracy and faithfulness to the original 

require that the illegible portion be photographed and reproduced on the 

slip law. Such a procedure would unquestionably produce a more accurate copy of the statute than would using blanks. Furthermore, such 

reproduction would provide an official or private party who might seek 

to rely on the statute at least some opportunity to attempt to interpret it. 

The current procedure of using blanks provides no such guidance.

III. Conclusion

To summarize: In producing slip laws from hand-enrolled legislation, 

NARA should make no changes to the text of statutes, but it may make

8 In this regard, we note that any printing instructions that may be contained in the margins o f a handenrolled statute (such as, for example, “Insert highlighted material from next page here”) do not constitute part o f the statutory text

360
changes in typeface and type style. If a particular printing is to be examined by NARA in order to determine whether it should be certified as a 

correct copy of the original, NARA should decline to certify if the printing contains any modifications to the content of the original. If a particular hand-enrolled statute contains illegible material, NARA should typeset 

the legible portions and photograph the illegible portions in producing 

the slip law.

WILLIAM P. BARR

Assistant Attorney General

Office of Legal Counsel

361