The US legal system is structured hierarchically, with the Constitution as the supreme law, followed by federal and state laws, and further detailed by regulations. This system involves elected officials creating laws, with interpretation and enforcement handled by various branches of government at federal, state, and local levels.
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all right
so we're back
so there are different levels of laws
and regulations and
the supreme law
under every under which everything falls
in the united states is
the uh
constitution the us constitution
so you may have heard oh that's unconstitutional
unconstitutional
no law can violate the constitution period
period and
so everything has to fit under the
constitution is the constitution fixed no
no
there are many amendments to the constitution
constitution
i would argue that
it's something that's not likely to
happen at this point in history
i don't see the
will or the interest to
modernize the constitution in any way
right at the moment but i would also
argue that there are some things in the
constitution that probably should be
modernized at some point
the constitution was written a very very
very long time ago and many of the
amendments to the constitution were
really about human rights civil rights
rights and protections for the most part that
that were
were
in some way left out or weren't properly
worded in the original constitution but
what we have now is the supreme law
under that law
we have the federal
and state laws which we'll get into in a moment
moment
but laws in general are
rules that are adopted by elected officials
officials and
and
the actual
meaning of that law changes
changes
by court interpretation so we have three
branches of government the executive
branch which is the president of the
united states
the legislative branch which is our senate
senate
and our house of representatives and
and
our judicial branch or
the court system at the federal level
there are federal courts
and the supreme court
plus courts of appeal as well
at the state level it's very similar we
have a governor
we have
a state legislature
and we have
our state courts our state courts of
appeal and our state supreme court
the supreme court of california
and all of that falls underneath the
umbrella of the federal level
level
and we also have county and city level so
so
federal state county city and they each
are organized in a very similar way
so these elected officials are
are
congress or state legislature
or county board of supervisors
or city council
again going down the list of levels
we elect those people and they
write laws and regulations
with the intent to represent the people
in their constituency people they are representing
representing
and it's not just people it's businesses
it's lobbyists and other special interests
interests and
and [Music]
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they do their best usually
usually
to write something that is going to be a
new rule to protect someone food safety
you must follow these rules in order to
keep consumers safe
and the law is usually really
short by comparison of the regulation
and the regulation is all right here's
the law you must do a bunch of things to
be safe
how do you do that
regulations can be a lot longer a lot
more detail now you've got all kinds of
different businesses i'm talking food
safety i've got restaurants and food
manufacturing facilities and grocery stores
stores and
and
vendors on the
street corner and i've got
agricultural production facilities i've
got transportation you've got cooling
all these different things that deal
with just food
there's a lot of rules so regulations
and almost every law has regulations and
so there's some
that agency
is going to exist because a law says you
and that agency is then
in charge of
applying enforcing
the rules
and working out the details of the
regulation so for example stick to food
safety since i've been talking about it
already but
the federal government
as well as
some state legislatures
legislatures
have written laws
about food safety
and the laws say you must do
this list of things in order to keep
people safe
they also will say that there must be
some organization
some appointed organization
that is going to make sure
that you
follow the rules and tell you what the
details of those rules are the regulations
regulations so
so
the usda us department of agriculture
exists because a law says it is a
responsibility of the federal government
to have
the united states department of
agriculture that's one of their
responsibilities there's a law that says that
that
there are tasks
that the usda must do now we don't elect
the usda the usda is
is
federal employees the head of the usda
is appointed by the president and
and [Music]
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there are lots of different departments
and they work with industry they work
with the public they work with schools and
and
individuals and farmers and
business owners and and
and
try to work out
how are we going to comply with these
food safety law what are the specific
so
federal laws
all should fall within and be compatible
with the united states constitution
and we call those the united states codes
codes
federal laws are called codes and
and
congress is
who adopts these
generally it goes first through the
house of representatives and then it
goes to
the u.s senate
if they're both approved it goes to this the
the
president for signing
and if the president signs it everything
happens it becomes
a new law
president doesn't sign it well can go
back to congress and
and
the president's veto or lack of
approval can be overridden by a
a
majority actually it's a two-thirds majority
majority of
of
the senate and
so once they have those laws in place
then they have to say somewhere in the law
law
who or which agency is going to regulate
at the state level
they're also called codes the california
codes every state has their list of
codes you can search and i actually have
a link for the california codes
and we have our legislature
we also have something
in california called the ballot
initiative propositions and
i'm going to go on a little side [Music]
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note here
the idea of propositions were because
grassroots efforts were often being
ignored by our legislature and so
the ballot initiative process the
proposition process in california was
adopted as a way for
the citizens
to get a voice and saying we think this
is important we think this should be part
part
of the rules
i was in full support
of the
ballot initiative concept
concept
unfortunately i would argue that in more
modern times in recent years it's been really
really
stolen by special interests and
big money interests and it's really hard
to tell the difference between
between
a grassroots
by the people ballot initiative or proposition
proposition
and a special interest
or a particular
business interest or financial interest
trying to just change things to get
their way
and so it takes a lot of work
and i vote yes on quite a few ballot
initiatives i vote no on quite a few as
well it depends
but i would say
you really have to do your homework now
more than ever
because the
uh not only the candidates for our
legislature or congress at the federal
level but also these ballot initiatives
and our laws they are given names that
are totally misleading to manipulate the
emotions they are being
sold to us as though they are
for the people
when sometimes they are sometimes
they're not
so i would encourage you to learn not
only about the ag laws and regulations
but also
learn about your own
local and state government and learn how
get involved do a little research learn
who you can trust
ballot initiatives or propositions or
candidates or something
i will
go to certain sources to try to see what
sources that to me have become
trustworthy sources
anyway enough on that
uh at the county level
we have things instead of codes our laws
at the county level are called ordinances
ordinances and
and
uh counties all that i know of have a
board of supervisors
it may be different in some states but
every place i've ever
known of if they have their board of
supervisors again elected officials
and there are also county
which
at the state level we call them propositions
propositions
at the county level um
um
and the city level it kind of depends so
don't worry about it but it's
essentially a ballot initiative where if
enough people will sign a petition
saying yes we want to vote on this
it makes it to the ballot and you vote
on it in your
local county jurisdictions
and the same thing in the city level but
at the city level the ordinances are
adopted by the city council again at
every level it's elected officials
officials
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