# Federal Rules of Evidence The rules governing the admissibility of evidence in federal proceedings — and the one rule set with a genuinely contested constitutional history, because Congress refused to let the judiciary promulgate them. The Supreme Court approved the rules in 1973 under the [[Rules Enabling Act]]. Congress postponed their effective date by statute in March 1973, held hearings, rewrote them, and **enacted them itself**, signed 2 January 1975 and effective 1 July 1975. That episode is the only time Congress has successfully stopped a completed package on the Enabling Act track, and it left a permanent mark on the statute: **28 U.S.C. § 2074(b)** now provides that a rule creating, abolishing or modifying an evidentiary privilege has no force unless approved by Act of Congress — the one subject on which the congressional default is reversed. It is also why the rules contain no codified privileges: **Rule 501** hands the question back to the common law instead. Congress has since written evidence rules directly into statute over the objection of the rules committees, adding **Rules 413–415** on prior sexual offenses in 1994–95. Recent history on the amendment track: **Rule 801** takes effect 1 December 2026. A proposed amendment to **Rule 609** cleared every stage through the Standing Committee and was then withdrawn in August 2026 after the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference objected to the committee note — see [[How a Federal Rule of Procedure Is Made]], Note 1. *Stub — expand with the 1975 enactment history, the 2011 restyling, and the Rule 702 / Daubert line.* ## See also - [[How a Federal Rule of Procedure Is Made]] - [[Rules Enabling Act]] - [[Judicial Conference of the United States]] - [[Federal Rules of Civil Procedure]] · [[Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure]]