Intro to Legal Research and Writing ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS The Alaska Admini

Intro to Legal Research and Writing
ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS
The Alaska Administrative Code (A.A.C.)
The Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.)
To be filed on or before Monday, December 4
LAW DERIVED FROM
ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS
Three Equal Branches of American Government
As we learned early in the course, the Constitution of the United States provides us with
a “tripartite” system of government, one that exists “in three parts” or branches. Through a
series of checks and balances, each of the three branches of government is designed to carry
out a specific governing function while retaining power equal to the other two branches. This
system of government provides us with a legislative branch of government which enacts our
laws, an executive branch which enforces our laws, and a judicial branch which interprets our
laws. As each of our fifty states came into being, a similar tripartite structure was adopted for
most state governments. The same is true of most local governments. As a result, we have in
the United States three branches of government, executive, legislative and judicial, which exist
at three levels of government, federal, state and local. We obtain “law” from each of these three
equal branches.
The legislative branch of government consists of elected representatives who “enact”
law; the federal congress, the state legislatures, and the municipal assemblies or councils. We
refer to these laws as statutes or ordinances.
The judicial branch consists of the federal court system, a separate court system for
each state and the District of Columbia, and in most instances, although not in Alaska, a local
or municipal court system. This branch of government “decrees” law which we refer to as “case
law” or “common law.”
Finally, the executive branch of government consists of elected executive officers, the
President at the federal level, the Governor at the state level, and the Mayor at the municipal
level. In addition, the executive branch includes several administrative agencies, each headed
by an administrator appointed by the executive. We obtain much of our law from the
administrative agencies of the executive branch of our government. In fact, most authorities
declare that the majority of our law comes from the executive branch through the administrative
rules and regulations that are promulgated by the various administrative agencies. We generally
simply refer to this law as “regulations.” We all hear constantly from politicians that it is the
unreasonable use of regulations that adversely impacts many aspects of our day-to-day lives
and impedes the progress of our economy.
You can easily name dozens of these agencies. They are known by a variety of names:
“agency,” “commission,” “administration,” “service,” “authority,” “board,” “department, “division,”
or even “corporation.” For example, common federal agencies and their acronyms include:
Agricultural Stabilization Commission (ASC)
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
1