In the United States, a Uniform Act is a proposed state law drafted by the U.S. Uniform Law Commission (ULC) and approved by its sponsor, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).
Federalism in the United States under the Constitution grants only limited lawmaking power to the federal government, because in U.S. federalism, the states are regarded as the plenary sovereigns. Under the Tenth Amendment, all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the Constitution, or forbidden by it to the states, are reserved to the governments of the separate states or to the people. Therefore the states are free to enact their own unique laws on anything not within the purview of federal preemption. At the same time, in certain areas of law that are regularly litigated across state lines, it is desirable to have a predictable and relatively uniform set of laws in each state. Therefore, the states have passed laws dealing with a variety of legal issues that are identical or very similar in terms of their content. These are known as "Uniform Acts."
Such laws are distinct from interstate compacts.
Read more about Uniform Act: Drafting
Famous quotes containing the words uniform and/or act:
“We call ourselves a free nation, and yet we let ourselves be told what cabs we can and can’t take by a man at a hotel door, simply because he has a drum major’s uniform on.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“No legislation can suppress nature; all life rushes to reproduction; our procreative faculties are matured early, while passion is strong, and judgment and self-restraint weak. We cannot alter this, but we can alter what is conventional. We can refuse to brand an act of nature as a crime, and to impute to vice what is due to ignorance.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)