“act of”

one of three Depression-era bank reform measures that established federal deposit insurance and helped curb bank speculation. The Glass-Steagall Act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which backs deposits using federal dollars, and required the separation of investment banking and commercial banking, thus allowing different interest rates for long-term and short-term financing. A later act, known as the Emergency Banking Relief Act, 12 U.S.C. 51a–51c (1933), created a “bank holiday” (business moratorium) to stop a depositor panic and to allow for the reorganization of solvent banks under federal review-and-licensing guidelines. It also authorized the president to take the United States off the gold standard, ending a foreign drain on gold and reassuring depositors. Finally, the Banking Act of 1935 gave the Federal Reserve Board the power to determine the cash reserves of commercial banks, a move that came to be recognized as an appropriate technique for controlling the money supply. In 1999, Congress passed the Financial Modernization Act, popularly the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 113 Stat. 1338 et seq., which repealed core provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act. Particularly, the Financial Modernization Act repealed provisions of Glass-Steagall that prohibited banks from affiliating with securities firms. It created the financial holding company as a vehicle through which a bank could engage in previously prohibited financial services, such as securities investment and insurance underwriting.

added new regulations to the financing of political campaigns. The law sought to end the use of “soft money,” or funds raised outside of existing federal campaign finance law. It limited the ways in which national party committees, state, local, and district parties, and federal candidates and officeholders could raise and spend funds for various activities conducted in connection with a campaign for federal office. It added new rules defining when a communication (such as a television or radio ad or mass mailing) was coordinated between a candidate or political party and the person making such a communication, such that the communication amounted to an in-kind contribution or expenditure that required reporting to the Federal Election Commission. It increased limits on individuals' contributions to candidates, and added new regulations with regard to self-financed candidates. It also prohibited corporations and labor unions from funding “electioneering communications,” or certain political ads referring to a clearly identified candidate, usually about a particular issue. The Supreme Court struck down the prohibition on corporate and union funding in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010), holding that it was a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

comprehensive legislation intended to end discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin. It is often called the most important U.S. law on civil rights since Reconstruction (1865–77). Title I of the Act guarantees equal voting rights by removing registration requirements and procedures biased against minorities and the underprivileged. Title II prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation involved in interstate commerce. Title VII bans discrimination, including sex-based discrimination, by trade unions, schools, or employers involved in interstate commerce or doing business with the federal government; it also established a government agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), to enforce these provisions. The Act also calls for the desegregation of public schools (Title IV), broadens the duties of the Civil Rights Commission (Title V), and assures nondiscrimination in the distribution of funds under federally assisted programs (Title VI). A 1972 amendment, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., extended Title VII coverage to employees of state and local governments and increased the enforcement authority of the EEOC.

legislation enacted in scattered sections of the U.S. Code governing the growing communications field. It created the Federal Communications Commission and established regulations for wire and radio common carriers (as for licensing and setting charges). The Act was amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

replaced prior Copyright Act of 1909, revising extensively U.S. copyright law. This act preempted state common-law copyright, thus completing the coverage of the national copyright system. In addition to other changes, it eliminated the requirement that works to be copyrighted be deposited with the Library of Congress, and it changed the term of copyright from 28 years with a single renewal to the life of the author plus 50 years (with certain exceptions). It also broadened categories of materials that may be copyrighted, stating that copyright subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. Such works include literary, musical, and dramatic works; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings and computer software. The Act clarified the conventions of fair use; specified proper copyright notification (usually the symbol © or the word “Copyright”); established the Copyright Royalty Tribunal to oversee cable television and jukebox licensing of copyrighted works, in accordance with royalty rates set by the tribunal; placed limitations on the use of copyrighted works by libraries and educational institutions; and established a mechanism for review of issues pertaining to computer software.

the first act in the United States prescribing nationwide compulsory federal regulation of wages and hours, sponsored by Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York. The law, applying to all industries engaged in interstate commerce, established a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour for the first year, to be increased to 40 cents within seven years. No worker was obliged to work, without compensation at overtime rates, more than 44 hours a week during the first year, 42 the second year, and 40 thereafter. A 1963 amendment, the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206 (d), barred gender discrimination in pay rates for the same work done under similar conditions.

see Banking Act of 1933

mandated creation of rules for the protection and security of consumers' medical records and health information provided to and by “covered entities,” including health plans, hospitals, and health care providers. The “Privacy Rule” protects the privacy of health information; the “Security Rule” sets standards for the security of health information in electronic form. The Act also contains provisions protecting continuity of health coverage by allowing workers to transfer health insurance coverage upon a change or loss of employment and limiting health-plan exclusions for preexisting conditions.

one of the first legislative steps in creating the reservation system from which 25 U.S.C. § 174 is derived. Despite a 1789 act of Congress, 1 Stat. 137, declaring that the land rights of Native Americans must be respected and that their title could only be extinguished by treaty, the 1830 act authorized the president to purchase land from tribes east of the Mississippi and grant them perpetual title to land west of the river. In carrying out the law, resistance was met with military force. The discovery of gold in California (1848) started a new sequence of broken treaties and war. An act of March 3, 1871, 15 Stat. 566, terminated native tribes' status as independent powers with which the United States could contract by treaty and brought Native Americans under tighter legislative control, ultimately assigning them to reservations. The infamous Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887, 25 U.S.C. § 331 et seq. (1887), divided the reservations into individual parcels and gave every inhabitant a particular piece of the land. The result was disastrous: through the alienation of surplus lands and the patenting of individual holdings, Native American peoples collectively lost 62 percent (86,000,000 acres) of their tribal lands. In 1934, Congress adopted the Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U.S.C. § 461 et seq. (1934), which contemplated an orderly decrease in federal control and a concomitant increase of Native American self-government. About 160 tribes adopted written constitutions, and a revolving credit fund helped Native Americans improve their economic position. The Snyder Act, 25 U.S.C. § 13 (1921), extended citizenship to all Native Americans, but few took advantage of the law. In the 1950s many petitions for land claims against the United States were granted, with awards totaling nearly $1 billion. In 1968, Congress passed the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1301 et seq., prohibiting tribes exercising the powers of self-government from infringing on rights (as to freedom of speech and trial by jury) guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. In subsequent decades Native Americans continued to strengthen their tribal governments and increase their use of the courts to obtain rights to economic resources connected with tribal lands.

required the registration of communist organizations in the United States and established the Subversive Activities Control Board to investigate persons thought to be engaged in “un-American” activities. It was a key institution in the era of the Cold War, tightening alien exclusion and deportation laws and allowing for the detention of dangerous, disloyal, or subversive persons in times of war or “internal security emergency.” Most of its provisions were later declared unconstitutional.

passed in response to several massive corporate fraud scandals. The thrust of the Act was to prevent fraudulent corporate accounting practices. The Act increased the requirements for financial disclosure by corporations. Accounting firms that audit public corporations were also put under increased scrutiny, and the Public Company Oversight Board was established under the Act to regulate such accounting firms. The Act included a number of provisions designed to increase corporate responsibility, and added new protections for whistleblowers.

an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917. The Act made it criminal to use speech to incite resistance to the war effort, as well as to criticize the United States or to support a country at war with the United States. The Act was repealed in 1921.

reserved exclusive rights to an original design for a semiconductor chip to the owner of that design for a period of 10 years.

revised federal tax laws and created the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The Act eliminated various tax loopholes for high-income earners and reduced the highest rates for both businesses and individuals. The intent of the Act was to achieve a “level playing field.” The rate reductions were to be made up by increased restrictions on deductions for corporate capital expenditures and a repeal of the investment tax credit. Corporate taxes were thus expected to increase $120 billion in five years, which they generally did. The act also removed over four million low-income individuals from the tax rolls and made unemployment compensation taxable. Tax reform took place previously in 1976, 1981, and 1984. The Tax Reform Act of 1976 included, among other changes, new provisions relating to childcare and child support, and instituted new laws relating to capital gains and losses, including the one-time exclusion from capital gains tax on the sale of a residence. In 1981, the Economic Recovery Tax Act (q.v.) was enacted. The Tax Reform Act of 1984 was aimed at reducing the federal deficit. Among its provisions were tax exemptions for certain fringe benefits, stricter rules regarding deductions for charitable donations, and the creation of tax advantages to corporations to encourage exports. These efforts to amend federal tax laws were followed by the sweeping changes brought by the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

see Tax Reform Act of 1986