Uniform Acts

Uniform Acts

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.