The U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel recently announced new  Title 52 of the United States Code (U.S.C.), titled Voting and Elections. Unlike Title 51, National and  Commercial Space Programs, which was enacted by Congress in 2010, the new Title is an “editorial reclassification” that will relocate provisions on voting and election-related laws from existing titles 2 and 42 into the new Title 52 (a chart of the Code section changes is available at the Office of Law Revision Counsel website). Title 52 took effect on September 1 for the electronic version of the United States Code, and will be included in Supplement II to the 2012 print edition of the Code.

The Office of the Law Revision Counsel recommended more than five years ago that Congress enact a proposed new Title 52 into positive law. However, Congress failed to take any action on the proposal, so the Law Revision Counsel created Title 52 as an editorial reclassification, which is considered a routine transfer of existing Code sections that the editors can undertake unilaterally.

The Law Revision Counsel editors have proposed additional potential new titles of the Code. These titles await congressional action in the future:

• Title 53: Small Business
• Title 54: National Park System
• Title 55: Environment