The Constitution

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

It creates the Federal Government, including the three branches, and delineates what authority the Federal Government can exercise.

Take a moment to read the Constitution to familiarize yourself with what the Federal Government is supposed to do.
Read the Constitution

Treaties are agreements between The United States and other countries.
Treaties are binding on The United States only after they have been ratified by two-thirds of the Senate.

Created by Congress.
Laws passed by majorities of both the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by the President.
Federal laws are collected in The United States Code which organizes the laws by topic (i.e. all criminal laws are in Title 18 of The United States Code).

Regulations are created by the Executive Branch in order to enforce statutes.
Certain laws authorize executive agencies to pass legally binding rules that elaborate on and sometimes expand statutory requirements.
Nearly all regulations must be made pursuant to what is called “notice-and-comment rulemaking.”
- Notice-and-comment rulemaking requires the agency to publish an initial version of a proposed rule for review by the public. The public can then provide comments on what it thinks the proposed rule gets right, and what it gets wrong. The agency must then take those comments into consideration before publishing a final rule.
- Rules can be challenged if someone affected by the rule believes that the agency did not properly take into account comments by the public, or if the rule has a legal defect.