How do laws, statutes, and rules differ?
Laws refer to all laws passed by the Legislature, which are subsequently bound in the Session Laws of that year. Statutes are a codification of the general and permanent laws, which are compiled and published every year as Minnesota Statutes or its supplement. By codifying laws into Minnesota Statutes, the laws are placed into context of statutes that have been on the books in previous years. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand a law unless it is placed into the proper context in Minnesota Statutes. But remember that not all laws will become statutes. Some laws, such as ones passed for a specific town or city, and appropriation measures, aren’t included in Minnesota Statutes. So you won’t find the appropriations made by the 2000 Legislature in the same set of books that contain the Minnesota statutes prohibiting drunk driving. The appropriation bills are probably the best examples of laws that aren’t statutes. Why are some laws not included in statutes? The main reason is that app
