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Bill titles have no legal standing in North Carolina.

In Congress, the name of a piece of legislation is often specified in the first section of the bill, which makes it a permanent part of the law.

But the titles given to bills in the General Assembly are not included in the bill itself, explained the ever-helpful Gerry Cohen, head of the bill drafting division.

Though bill titles are used in the bill digest and daily calendar, they are not part of state statutes or session laws afterward.

"When a bill becomes a law, the title drops off," he said.

Many legislative watchers don't pay much attention to them.

Christine Wunsche, director of the legislative reporting service at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Government, said that they focus on the long titles and the text of the bill when writing daily summaries.

"We really try when we summarize bills to give a lot of the details," she said. "Short titles just don't give enough information."

Who titles a bill?

It depends. Some state legislators write their own bill titles, while others are suggested by staff of the bill drafting division. In rare instances, special interest groups suggest a title for legislation they favor.

Every bill has two versions of its title. The long one is written like a sentence and can stretch to Faulknerian lengths, at times reaching as much as two pages. The short one is closer to a haiku, limited to 45 characters including spaces.

Gerry Cohen, head of the bill drafting division, said that short titles were originally limited to 36 characters because of software the legislature used in the 1970s. The length is now determined by the desire to keep titles under one line to save paper on the daily calendar.

Long titles sometimes make reference to every provision in the bill. Under House rules, titles cannot be changed on the floor, so that's one way to keep a bill from being changed too radically. (The same rule does not apply in the Senate.)

Short titles written by staffers are usually more descriptive, Cohen says. But he tells legislators that the title is their "best sales pitch" for a bill, and some take it to heart.

Previously: Bill title strategies for controversial subjects.