`law_sections`

Published law sections

One row per native section occurrence in a published law's main body. These are the law's own words, including amendment instructions, not a consolidated statement of current law. Section numbers and publisher IDs can repeat or be absent; (law_id, seq) identifies each occurrence and native_path locates it in the source XML. is_quoted marks sections inside quotedContent; parent_seq alone does not imply a quotation. Body excludes its own number and heading, print furniture, and nested sections' text; query the child rows as well. laws.law_body_remainder retains text outside all numbered sections, including appropriation blocks. Hierarchy and issues_json retain context and source irregularities. All columns are VARCHAR, including boolean and numeric observations.

Coverage. Derived: source-native sections from identity-validated GovInfo public and private law XML acquired by the laws rollup. Join law_id to laws.law_id, then laws.bill_id to congress_bills.bill_id. A missing section row does not establish that the law has no text: check laws.law_text_outcome and law_section_count. Coverage follows successfully read XML, not all enacted laws. PDF-only sources are outside this reader. (measured 2026-10-02)

Parquet file: law_sections.parquet
MCP query_sql support: Configured; requires an available artifact.
Publication status: Not established by this schema page or its measurement date.
Row count: Not stated here; the MCP describe_table reply gives the live count under publication.

Column	Type	Description
`law_id`	`VARCHAR`	Validated congress-kind-number law key; joins laws.law_id and through laws.bill_id to the enacted measure.
`seq`	`VARCHAR`	Zero-based native section occurrence in document order; missing or repeated labels never merge rows.
`publisher_id`	`VARCHAR`	The section element's literal id attribute, including repeats; NULL if missing.
`publisher_identifier`	`VARCHAR`	The section element's literal identifier attribute, not inferred from its number.
`section_number`	`VARCHAR`	Text of the section's direct num element; repeated direct num elements are newline-joined and flagged.
`section_number_value`	`VARCHAR`	The single direct num element's value attribute, where stated; NULL for missing or repeated num elements.
`heading`	`VARCHAR`	Mixed inline text of the direct heading; repeated direct headings are newline-joined and flagged.
`parent_seq`	`VARCHAR`	Occurrence of the nearest containing native section; NULL for sections without a section ancestor.
`hierarchy_json`	`VARCHAR`	Source-order structural ancestors with element, namespace-qualified path, native IDs, number and heading.
`native_path`	`VARCHAR`	Absolute XPath 1.0 using local-name and namespace-uri predicates into the exact source XML.
`body`	`VARCHAR`	Section-owned source text: block boundaries become newlines; inline adjacency survives, amending actions included. Excludes own number/heading, print furniture and nested sections, which have separate rows. Print furniture is the page's apparatus beside the enacted words: page numbers, running heads and, from law_text_reader_version law-sections-uslm-v2, the USLM sidenote margin notes (`42 USC 405 note.`, a topical catchword such as `Contracts.`), each flagged in issues_json as print_furniture_excluded:; under law-sections-uslm-v1 the margin notes were kept as body lines. This is not consolidated or applied law text.
`is_quoted`	`VARCHAR`	true when a native quotedContent ancestor encloses this section; a quoted section is not a separate enacted section.
`issues_json`	`VARCHAR`	Observed missing/repeated labels or IDs, unknown elements, excluded nested text and print furniture; these observations do not interpret legal effect.
`source_sha256`	`VARCHAR`	SHA-256 of the exact identity-validated law XML shared with the parent law metadata capture.
`reader_version`	`VARCHAR`	Source-owned USLM section-reading rule; no enrolled BILLS parser or diff equivalence is used.
`observed_at`	`VARCHAR`	When the caller captured the law XML, not when this section reader ran.