Previous Compilations of the Statutes
Publication of the Revised Statutes
Codification under Public Act 86-523
Organizational Principles of ILCS
On January 1, 1993 a new compilation of the Illinois statutory law took effect. The compilation is known as the Illinois Compiled Statutes. Its abbreviated designation is ILCS.
ILCS contains topical chapters arranged within 9 major topic areas. The major topic areas and chapters are arranged functionally, rather than alphabetically. The major topics and chapters appear on the main ILCS page.
Many chapters are further divided into topical subheads. When chapters are selected on the main ILCS page, the subheads, if any, appear on the page for those chapters. For example, the main page for Chapter 20 shows the subheads as well as the Acts in Chapter 20.
These major topics, chapters, and subheads are the basic road maps to ILCS.
Previous Compilations of the Statutes
In 1818 Illinois became a state. The legislature immediately began passing laws in the form of Acts of the General Assembly.
In 1845, 27 years later, the State decided to organize the Acts into a coherent framework. In the 1845 Revised Statutes, the Acts were arranged within 110 subject matter chapters, and those chapters were arranged alphabetically. For example: Chapter 14 was Bail, 29 Courts, 30 Criminal Jurisprudence, 40 Evidence, 45 Fugitives, 48 Habeas Corpus, 55 Jails, 81 Penitentiary, and 99 Sheriffs. All of these chapters related to criminal jurisprudence. Although a law enforcement official needed to have reference to all of these chapters, and although the chapters were spread out alphabetically from the beginning to the end of the 1845 Revised Statutes, the 1845 Revised Statutes were easy to use because all the statutory law was contained within a single printed volume.
By 1869 the State decided that, with the increase in the number of Acts, it was again necessary to reorganize the statutes. In 1874, 29 years after the 1845 Revised Statutes, the State officially adopted the 1874 Revised Statutes. The organization followed the same principles as the 1845 Revised Statutes. Approximately 254 Acts were arranged within 148 topical chapters. The chapters were arranged alphabetically. For example: Chapter 14 was State's Attorneys, 16 Bail, 25 Clerks of Court, 37 Courts, 38 Criminal Code, 51 Evidence, 65 Habeas Corpus, 75 Jails, 108 Penitentiary, 118 Reform Schools, and 125 Sheriffs. Although these laws relating to criminal jurisprudence were again spread throughout the 1874 Revised Statutes, as they had been in the 1845 Revised Statutes, the organization was still workable because all of the laws were in a single printed volume.
The 1874 Revised Statutes were the last official organization of the statutes prior to ILCS taking effect on January 1, 1993. That is a span of 119 years, from Presidents Grant through Bush and Governors Beveridge through Edgar. The world has changed more in those 119 years than probably any other period of history; and, as a consequence, the number and mass of statutory laws have exploded. The number of Acts has increased from 250 to approximately 2,000, the number of printed volumes from one (printed one column per page) to 6 (printed two columns per page) in the 1991 edition of the Revised Statutes. Laws and indices relating to criminal jurisprudence, for example, were spread out in the 1991 edition of the Revised Statutes in at least 35 chapters in all 6 printed volumes. The alphabetical arrangement of the Revised Statutes no longer worked. Moreover, some chapters (for example, Chapter 127 State Government) had become huge, unwieldy, and disorganized by the addition of new Acts over the many years of supplementing the 1874 Revised Statutes. The Illinois Supreme Court, among others, had pointed out the confusion caused by the poor organization of the outdated Revised Statutes. The Court, in its 1988 and 1989 annual reports to the General Assembly, recommended consideration of recodification. The time was more than ripe for a reorganization of the statutes.
Publication of the Revised Statutes
The 1874 Revised Statutes were an official arrangement of the statutes by the State in Illinois. The State, however, did not maintain the organizational scheme. When a new Act became law and needed to be placed within the framework of the Revised Statutes, that task was left to private publishers. Unfortunately, however, the publishers were not consistent. One publisher might place a new Act in one chapter and another publisher place the same new Act in another chapter. Even if two publishers placed the Act in the same chapter, they each might assign different paragraph numbers. The result was chaos. By the 1930s there were at least three competing publishers, each with its own version of the Revised Statutes. Each version was numbered, at least to some extent, differently from the others. A complete law library needed three sets of the Revised Statutes. In order to solve the confusion and decrease the expense to its members, the Illinois State Bar Association decided in the 1930s to endorse the edition of a single publisher and to encourage all of its members to use only that edition. The Bar Association's endorsement solved those problems, but it created another problem: a single publisher making editorial decisions as to where to place new Acts in the chapters of the Revised Statutes allowed that publisher to assert a copyright interest in the arrangement of the Revised Statutes and to effectively prevent other publishers from entering the market. That publisher was West Publishing Company. Moreover, because the State had not maintained the organization and numbering of the Revised Statutes, it was an "unofficial" compilation of the statutes.
In the late 1980s a dispute arose between the publishers West, which claimed a copyright interest, and Mead, which wanted to publish the Revised Statutes. The dispute spilled over into the General Assembly and became a heavily lobbied issue. As a result, in 1987 the General Assembly passed House Bill 1924. This bill attempted to make the arrangement of the Revised Statutes "official" and to put the arrangement into the public domain for purposes of federal copyright law. Governor Thompson vetoed the bill stating he feared it would embroil the State in costly copyright litigation. In 1988, the Mead/West dispute continued. The General Assembly passed House Bill 3896, which had the same provisions as House Bill 1934. The Governor again vetoed the bill.
Codification under Public Act 86-523
In 1988, West and Mead settled their dispute. Nevertheless, the General Assembly passed House Bill 757, whose chief sponsors were Representatives Cullerton and Countryman and Senator Berman. The bill was signed by Governor Thompson and became Public Act 86-523, effective September 1, 1989. That Act directed the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to submit to the General Assembly a plan for the comprehensive and systematic codification of the statutory law.
A Preliminary Plan dated November 29, 1990 was submitted. The Preliminary Plan pointed out that the last time the State of Illinois had officially reorganized the statutes into a systematic whole was in 1874. The 1874 Revised Statutes organized 254 Acts into 148 topical chapters arranged alphabetically according to the chapter names. In 1990, there were nearly 2,000 Acts. The Preliminary Plan suggested organizing those Acts functionally (rather than alphabetically) into 64 topical chapters arranged within 10 major topic areas, such as Education and Transportation.
The Legislative Reference Bureau received numerous suggestions from government officials and agencies, bar associations and other private organizations, publishers, and others. In light of those suggestions, the Legislative Reference Bureau submitted a Revised Plan dated October 22, 1991. The Revised Plan suggested organizing the nearly 2,000 Acts into 67 chapters arranged within 9 major topic areas.
The Board of the Legislative Reference Bureau held a public hearing on November 6, 1991 concerning the Preliminary and Revised Plans. Those testifying at the hearing generally expressed strong support.
In June of 1992, the 87th General Assembly passed House Bill 3810; the vote in the House was 106-0 and in the Senate 56-0. The bill was sponsored by Representatives Hultgren, Brunsvold, Homer, Noland, Trotter, and McAuliffe and Senator Thomas Dunn. Governor Edgar approved House Bill 3810 on September 3, 1992, and it became Public Act 87-1005, effective September 3, 1992.
Public Act 87-1005 directed the Legislative Reference Bureau to file a compilation of the general Acts of Illinois. The compilation is known as the Illinois Compiled Statutes or ILCS and took effect January 1, 1993. The compilation is an official compilation by the State and is entirely in the public domain for purposes of federal copyright law. Anyone may publish the statutes. Public Act 87-1005 further provided, for purposes of transition, that references to the former Illinois Revised Statutes are deemed to be references to corresponding provisions of ILCS.
The compilation was filed by the Legislative Reference Bureau (as directed by Public Act 87-1005) on September 14, 1992. It organized the nearly 2,000 general Acts of Illinois through Public Act 87-895 into 67 chapters arranged within 9 major topic areas. The Legislative Reference Bureau makes additions, deletions, and changes to ILCS (for example, when new Acts become law or existing Acts are repealed) by filing documents as provided in Public Act 87-1005. Thus, ILCS continues to be an "official" compilation of the statutes maintained by the State.
Organizational Principles of ILCS
The organizational scheme of ILCS was carried out as an inductive, rather than deductive, process. The statutory law of every other state has been organized into a topical scheme either by its legislature or by a private publisher. One method of trying to organize the Illinois statutes, a deductive method, would have been to examine the organizational schemes of the statutes of the other states, pick one of those schemes, modify it, and then try to fit the 2,000 Illinois Acts into that scheme. The statutory law of Illinois, however, has developed within its own historical and legislative context. In many cases, Illinois has had problems that have been solved legislatively that are problems other states have not experienced. In other cases, although Illinois' problems have been similar to those of other states, the legislative solution in Illinois has been different. Thus, although the organization of the statutes in other states was examined, and although the organization of ILCS now resembles that of other states to some extent, it was decided not to try to deductively squeeze the Acts of Illinois into pigeonholes adopted in other states.
Instead, the approach in developing the organizational scheme of ILCS was to examine each of the 2,000 Illinois Acts and to inductively develop an organizational scheme based on that Act by Act examination of the Illinois statutory law. Thus, the organization of ILCS is tailored to the actual law of Illinois, rather than having imposed upon that law the organizational scheme of another state.
The guiding principle of any organization of the statutory law should be to comprehensively and systematically organize that law so it is conveniently accessible to the people who need to know, use, and obey that law. Thus, the arrangement should be functional. In order to develop a functional arrangement, the following considerations must be analyzed: (1) into what basic topical categories may the statutes be broken down, (2) who are the primary users within each of those categories, and (3) how can the arrangement and development of those categories best facilitate their use by the primary users.
In developing the basic categories, an examination of the Acts of Illinois revealed that approximately one-half are laws relating primarily to the organization and administration of government: State government, counties, townships, municipalities, school districts, and the numerous special districts in Illinois. Therefore, the first obvious and basic topical category is government organization and administration. Acts in this category include the Civil Administrative Code, the State Finance Act, the Income Tax Act, the Counties Code, the School Code, and many others.
An examination of the remaining one-half of the Acts revealed that a common thread also runs through those Acts. They generally deal with the protection and regulation of private individuals and entities. Acts in this general category include the Criminal Code, the Hospital Licensing Act, the Workers' Compensation Act, the Banking Act, the Vehicle Code, and many others.
Thus, the two basic topical categories are (1) government organization and administration and (2) public protection and regulation, with the number of Acts in each category being roughly equal. There are, however, many Acts that cut across both categories. For example, the Human Rights Act contains organizational and administrative provisions for the Department of Human Rights and the Human Rights Commission; it also contains substantive provisions concerning civil rights, together with remedies for violation of those rights. Moreover, in the process of developing categories the basic distinction between government and public began to break down; categories suggested themselves based on other natural or historical reasons. Nevertheless, the basic distinction between government and public was a useful guideline to keep in mind when developing categories and assigning Acts to those categories.
Not surprisingly, the primary users of each basic category are pretty well defined. Government officers and employees and attorneys representing government are the primary, though not exclusive, users of Acts within the government organization and administration category. Private attorneys, business people, the judiciary, and private citizens are the primary, though not exclusive, users of Acts in the public protection and regulation category. The line between the primary users of each basic category, however, is not always clear. Virtually everyone may have some interest in the Acts falling within both categories. Nevertheless, keeping the primary users of each basic category in mind helped in developing categories and placing Acts within those categories.
A useful arrangement of the topical categories is one that is convenient, meaningful, logical, and functional. The categories should be developed and arranged so that a person who wants to know the law on a particular subject is generally able to find it by looking at or being familiar with the organizational scheme. The person should not have to continually resort to laborious searches through an index. Moreover, the categories should be grouped so that users will have to do as little shifting as possible from one bound volume of the statutes to another. If possible, the categories should be grouped in a way that allows a bound volume to contain a related and coherent group of categories for the ease of the primary and all other users.
The law, however, does not always develop in a logical manner. Critical problems must be dealt with as they occur. This often results in Acts that are not easily categorized or that cross over into several categories. Thus, a useful arrangement cannot be perfect, and some searching of indices is inevitable.
Considering the distinction between Acts relating to governmental organization and administration and those relating to public protection and regulation, the groups of people who would be primarily interested in each individual Act, and the goal of producing a useful arrangement, topical chapters were created and arranged functionally within nine major topics. The major topics and chapters appear on the main ILCS page. Many chapters are further divided into topical subheads. When chapters are selected on the main ILCS page, the subheads, if any, appear on the page for those chapters. For example, the main page for Chapter 20 shows the subheads as well as the Acts in Chapter 20. In developing the arrangement of chapters and major topics, an attempt was made to satisfy the needs of the users. For example, the major topic Rights and Remedies contains those Acts that a judge or a private attorney in general practice will be using regularly. These include Acts relating to courts, arbitration, criminal offenses and procedure, corrections, civil procedure, liabilities, immunities, family law, estates, trusts, property law, liens, and human rights. In addition, other Acts used by judges and lawyers are placed nearby. The Vehicle Code, containing traffic laws and DUI provisions, is just before Rights and Remedies, and those Acts relating to business law follow Rights and Remedies.
Once the major topics, chapters, and subheads were initially developed and Acts assigned within the arrangement, everything was again examined on an Act by Act basis. The primary questions in this review were (1) does the essential subject matter of the Act really fall within the chapter within which it is placed, (2) will a person looking for the Act naturally look in this chapter first, and (3) if the Act might logically fall within more than one chapter, which is the best from the point of view of those primarily interested in looking for and using the Act. All of these factors, and sometimes others, were considered, but no one factor was ever given overriding priority. Instead, because the several factors often led to different results, a balancing of factors was needed; the best possible solution was sought since there was no perfect solution.
An example is the Public Construction Bond Act (30 ILCS 550/). This Act requires State officials to obtain a bond from certain State contractors. The bond is for the benefit of subcontractors, and the Act gives those subcontractors a right to sue and recover on the bond for money owing from the contractor. Two groups of people are primarily interested in this Act: the first group consists of government officials who have the responsibility of obtaining the bond from the contractor, the contractor who must furnish the bond, and attorneys representing the contractor; the second group consists of subcontractors and their attorneys who would want to recover on the bond. The first group (government officials and contractors' attorneys) would naturally look first under the subhead "purchases and contracts" in the chapter on government finance. The subcontractors' attorneys might naturally look first under the chapter on liens where other Acts allowing subcontractors to recover against contractors are found. Each position has some merit with respect to the question of where the primary users will naturally first look for the Act. The subject matter of the Act is contract bonds, not liens, however. Therefore, the subject matter does not naturally fit within liens. Moreover, it is most important that government officials are aware of the Act, find it, and obtain the bond from the contractor. If the bond is not obtained because the government official is not aware of the Act, then even though a subcontractor's attorney might easily find the Act under the chapter on liens, it does not do the attorney's client any good without a bond having been obtained. Thus, on balance, the better place for the Act was felt to be under government contracts.
The arrangement of Acts within chapters and subheads was based on three primary principles, sometimes in combination: (1) placing an anchor Act first, (2) creating functional groups, and (3) alphabetizing by the short title of the Act. An anchor Act is one that is the primary, most comprehensive Act within the topic. For example, under the subhead "common schools" within Chapter 105 Schools, the anchor Act is the School Code and it is placed first. In Chapter 745 Civil Immunities, those Acts granting immunity to governments and their employees and officials are functionally grouped together first, then the Acts relating to private immunities follow in alphabetical order.
There were two major problems with the numbering scheme of the Revised Statutes. The first was that in numbering the chapters and paragraphs initially each whole number was used: 1, 2, 3, and so on. No room was left for expansion. When new chapters needed to be created, they had to be given numbers like 111 1/2, 111 2/3, and 131 1/4. Likewise, new Acts added to a chapter often ended up with strange paragraph numbers: Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Act might have paragraph numbers 15-7.1, 15-7.2, and 15-7.3 in order to squeeze the Act into a logical place within the chapter. The second problem with the numbering of the Revised Statutes was that the paragraph numbers of a chapter often were unrelated to the Section numbers of the Act. For example, Section 423 of the Illinois Insurance Code was par. 1030 of Chapter 73, Section 444 was par. 1056, and Section 493.2 was par. 1065.40-2. Confusion between Section numbers and paragraph numbers was epidemic.
In the numbering of the chapters of ILCS, each major topic has its own one hundred series and chapters are numbered in intervals of 5. For example, chapters within the major topic Education are numbered in the 100 series as 105, 110, and 115. Chapters within the Rights and Remedies major topic are numbered in the 700 series as 705, 710, 715, and so on through 775. Thus, there are open whole numbers between the initial chapters of ILCS and open numbers at the end of each one hundred series of major topics. As the need arises for new chapters, there should be plenty of room to fit the chapter into the existing ILCS arrangement in its functionally appropriate place and to designate the chapter with a whole number. Moreover, by assigning chapters within each major topic to an individual one hundred series of numbers, isolated and unfamiliar ILCS citations should nevertheless key the user to the major topic area. For example, an isolated citation to 750 ILCS 60/201 indicates a chapter in the 700 series, which is the major topic Rights and Remedies.
In the numbering scheme of the Revised Statutes, paragraph numbers ran sequentially throughout the chapter. Thus, the first Act in a chapter might have Section numbers 1 through 75 and paragraph numbers 1 through 75. The second Act in the chapter might have Section numbers 1 through 20 and paragraph numbers 76 through 95. Thus, the paragraph numbers in the Revised Statutes chapter ran from 1 through 95. In the second Act there was no correspondence between Section and paragraph numbers.
In the ILCS numbering scheme, Acts within a chapter are each given an Act prefix number sequentially throughout the chapter. For example, in Chapter 105 Schools the School Code is Act 5, the Illinois School Student Records Act is Act 10, the Surplus Federal Property for Schools Act is Act 15, and so on in intervals of 5. The Act prefix identifies the Act within the chapter and allows the ILCS numbering scheme to complete the designation of a particular Section by using the actual Section number of the Act, avoiding the problem of unrelated Section and paragraph numbers. For example, Section 17-3 of the School Code is cited as 105 ILCS 5/17-3. The chapter number is 105 (Schools), the Act prefix number is 5 (the School Code), the slash separates the Act prefix from what follows, and 17-3 corresponds exactly to the Section number of the Act. Act prefix numbers within a chapter are in intervals of 5 and gaps are left in certain places to allow for expansion. New Acts may be added to the numbering scheme using whole number Act prefixes.
Some examples of citations to ILCS and the corresponding former Revised Statutes citations are as follows:
(1) Section 2 of the Fiduciary Transfer of Securities Act.
This website has a 1992 Illinois Revised Statutes to ILCS cross-reference table and ILCS to Illinois Revised Statutes cross-reference table.
Users who have become familiar with the ILCS numbering scheme are able to gain much more information from the number than was previously the case with the numbering scheme of the Revised Statutes. The chapter number indicates both the topical chapter and the major topic, the Act prefix clearly identifies the Act within the chapter, and the ILCS citation indicates the Section number of the Act.
A recompilation of the Illinois Statutes was long overdue and much needed.
ILCS, the new compilation, gives users of the statutes a
functional, understandable, and expandable system of organization.
Note: A version of this Article appeared in Illinois Libraries, Vol. 75, No. 3, April 1993, published by the Illinois State Library.