[gmueckl]

The codification needs to become part of the process of passing acts. The government should be required to publish the updated code themselves along with any act that changed it. The whole concept that a commercial entity can have rights to the fully assembled text is terribly broken.

If anybody is worried about the jobs those businesses created, then tell them to pivot into publishing commented editions of the codes (add cross-references, references to relevant court decisions, etc.).

[singleshot_]

The codification happened hundreds of years ago, though.

But you could do it too! The Congressional Record is a thing, and it publishes all the acts of Congress, all the way back to the beginning.

The problem is that after you were done, the first thing someone would ask you is to cross-cite everything into the West Annotated code because no one else has your code and no one cares about it, because we all have Westlaw.

(Which publishes commented editions of the codes, with cross references, references to relevant court decisions, etc.)

It's all a little bit antiquated but it works fine. Someday it will change. I too thought it should work the way people are describing upthread when I was a computer guy but it is what it is.