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table3_records

Table III records

One row per classification record of one public law in OLRC's Table III: which U.S. Code place each section of the law went to, as Table III's bulk file states it. All columns are stored as VARCHAR.

Coverage. Window, complete for the Congresses read: every public law Table III holds for each Congress the laws table holds, plus the scoped ones, derived from OLRC's Table III bulk file on each run, so a Congress keeps its rows current after it leaves the laws scope while Table III catches up. The file holds the whole table back to 1789; other Congresses, private laws and pre-1957 session-law chapters are not derived. (measured 2026-09-26)

Data quality. Table III holds an act only once OLRC has classified it, and lags enactment: on 2026-09-26 it was current through 119-73, a law of 2026-01-23, while the law route reached 119-111. release_point says how current the file was. Its file at release point 119-73 also has no record of 119-70, a second-session law law_code_sections classifies (OLRC's gap, not a reading error). Since 2026-09-26 the rows come from the bulk file (fulldump@<release point>.xml) instead of one page per act. The file splits an act's records about ten to an <act> fragment. An act's rows are its fragments' records in the file's order, and seq is a record's position in its act, as on the page; the file's own sequence attribute repeats within 70 acts, so it is not used. Each fragment states its own Congress, date and Statutes volume, and a record carries its fragment's volume where it states a page. Replayed against the 2,981 rows the pages had published, every row keeps its position, act section, Statutes page and volume, Code title and section, status and release point. The file also holds 119-30 and 119-53, whose pages the page walk never reached. Four act-level columns now carry the file's spelling instead of the page's: stated_key 119-37 (page 119–37), congress 119 (119th Cong.), act_date 2025-11-12 (Nov. 12, 2025) and statutes_at_large_volume 139 (139 Stat.). OLRC states no Last-Modified, ETag or Content-Length for the zip, so each run fetches it; it was byte-identical on 2026-09-14 and 2026-09-26 at the same release point. Each Congress keeps a checkpoint in the file's metadata: the derivation rule with a digest of SpicyDocs' code (not its release string, so a version-only release derives nothing), the member's digest and release point, and each act's shaped-row digest. While all match, nothing is derived. Otherwise every scoped act is derived again, and only an act whose rows changed is published, its whole row set replaced. Table III only grows: across the eight consecutive releases from 116-150 (2020-07) to 119-73, archived by the Wayback Machine, no act was ever dropped (receipt table3-bulk-2026-09-26/wayback/). So a held act the file no longer lists loses its rows only when the release point advances, at most one act a release, and the removal is journaled as rows-retired for qualification to reconcile. A file whose release point is older than the one published, that drops an act without advancing, or that drops more than one is refused, and so is a file the reader refuses outright: the member has been renamed twice since 2020. A refused read publishes nothing for this table and keeps every checkpoint, while laws and law_code_sections publish as usual. The build journals it as table3-bulk-refused, and the nightly scripts/check_source_refusals.py fails while the current laws generation holds one, so the table cannot stop updating in silence. A transport failure is only retried on the next run. usc_section_key is the bare section folded for joins (trimmed, lower-cased, every dash spelling an ASCII hyphen), because case carries no identity in the Code and Table III itself prints some sections both ways (decision 30, docs/research/fork-delivery-decisions-2026-09-22.md); the note or preceding words Table III prints inside usc_section are in usc_place (until 2026-10-03 they stayed in the key, on 1,121 of 2,983 rows). Every laws run derives both again on every row from its stored usc_section, so held rows need no read of the file for them. All columns are stored as VARCHAR.

  • Parquet file: table3_records.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
act_key VARCHAR The act key: a public law number, or a pre-1957 session-law chapter.
stated_key VARCHAR The act number as Table III states it: 119-4 in the bulk file, 119–4 (en dash) on a page.
seq VARCHAR Zero-based position of this record in its act, in the source's own order.
congress VARCHAR The Congress Table III states for the act: 119 in the bulk file, 119th Cong. on a page.
act_date VARCHAR The act's date as Table III states it: 2025-03-15 in the bulk file, Mar. 15, 2025 on a page.
statutes_at_large_volume VARCHAR The volume Table III states for the act, or in the bulk file for the fragment holding this record: 139 there, 139 Stat. on a page.
release_point VARCHAR The release point Table III states it is current through: the bulk member's name, or a page's banner.
act_section VARCHAR The native act section; NULL when a meaningful source row leaves its label blank.
record_volume VARCHAR The volume of this record's Statutes at Large page: its statviewer link's on a page, its fragment's in the bulk file; NULL where neither is stated.
record_page VARCHAR The Statutes at Large page for this record.
usc_title VARCHAR The Code title the section went to; NULL where it went nowhere.
usc_section VARCHAR The Code section the section went to, as Table III prints it: a note or preceding place is part of the value (1101 nt, prec. 1071, nt. prec. 791), where law_code_sections prints the bare section and puts nt or prec in action; usc_section_key and usc_place split it. NULL where it went nowhere.
status VARCHAR Table III's status for the record, as printed and not expanded: Rep. (repealed) or Elim. (eliminated) on the 119th Congress's records; older acts also print Rev. T. (revised title) or a Revised Statutes or Internal Revenue Code reference (R.S. Sec 572). NULL where it prints none. The per-Congress tables spell a repeal repealed in law_code_sections.action.
observed_at VARCHAR When the page or bulk file was captured; the merge prefers the larger value.
usc_section_key VARCHAR The one U.S. Code section the row names, as a join key: the section number without Table III's printed note words (nt, nts, prec.; usc_place states them), lower-cased, with every dash spelling an ASCII hyphen, as RefSpec's section oracle keys it. Both OLRC tables key it the same way, so they meet on usc_title, usc_section_key and usc_place; without usc_place a note line meets the section's own line. Fold another source the same way (schemas.tables.usc_section_key): document_citations' usc_section rule 001 keeps the printed case and dashes. NULL where usc_section is NULL or names no single section (a list, a range or a chapter, which Table III prints for some older acts), and on rows published before the column existed.
usc_place VARCHAR Where on that section the row lands: section (the section itself), note (a note under it; OLRC's nt or nts), preceding (the place just before it, such as a chapter or subchapter heading a law adds there; prec) or note_preceding (a note at that place). Read from the section as Table III prints it (1101 nt, prec. 1071, nt. prec. 791) and from the head of law_code_sections.action (nt new, prec, nt prec new), by schemas.law_tables.usc_section_place. NULL where usc_section_key is NULL, and on rows published before the column existed.