1. Introduction

Legislative history refers to the events and documentation surrounding the consideration and enactment of a particular legislative bill. Legislative history research consists of looking for this documentation, which can often be helpful in shedding light on the meaning or intent of a particular piece of legislation or of specific language contained within that legislation.

This guide provides basic information on performing California legislative history research. It begins with a discussion of the major sources of California legislative history and then follows with an outline of some basic steps you can follow to see if there is any pertinent California legislative history readily available electronically and in print at USC. It also suggests some other places you may wish to contact if you decide you want to pursue your research further. It is advisable to keep fairly low expectations when performing California legislative history research given that documents produced by the California legislature are not that readily available.

For a more in-depth discussion of the California legislative process and legislative history research in California, consult chapter 4 of Henke's California Law Guide, 8th ed. (available in the Law Library's Ready Reference section, KFC74 .H53 2006). And for guidance on doing legislative history research for a federal bill or law, consult the USC Law Library guide Federal Legislative History Research.

2. Sources of California Legislative History

Below are brief descriptions of some of the more commonly cited sources of legislative history in California. This is not an exhaustive list, but it does include some of the more readily available sources.

Bills

By looking at the different versions of a bill as it made its way through the legislature, you may be able to infer what the legislature had in mind with respect to a particular provision. Additionally, each version of a bill is preceded by a "Legislative Counsel's Digest," which summarizes how the bill is going to change the present law. Some bills also include a statement of intent within the bill itself.

California bill numbers are preceded by an SB (for Senate Bill) or AB (for Assembly Bill). In each 2-year legislative session, the first bill introduced in the Senate and the Assembly becomes SB 1 and AB 1 respectively, and each subsequent bill during that session is numbered sequentially (i.e., SB 2, AB 2, SB 3, AB 3, etc.). Thus, in order to locate a particular bill, you need to know not only the bill number but also the specific session in which the bill was introduced (e.g., 2007-08 session, 2005-06 session, etc.).

Chaptered Laws

Every bill that gets enacted in California is assigned a chapter number and is referred to as a chaptered law. The first chaptered law enacted each year is designated as chapter 1 (c. 1) and each subsequent law is numbered sequentially (c. 2, c. 3, etc.). Any statements of intent included in a bill will also be included in the corresponding chaptered law.

Committee and Floor Analyses

Each bill introduced in the California legislature is referred to one or more legislative committees, which draft analyses of that bill. Each committee analysis includes a summary of the events that have taken place in the committee with respect to the bill and often includes statements of legislative intent as well.

Analyses are also written when the bill is being considered by the Senate and/or Assembly as a whole. These analyses are referred to as "floor analyses."

Committee Reports and Hearings

Legislative committees perform extensive research on many of the legislative topics before them and summarize the findings of their research and their recommendations in committee reports. One way in which the committees obtain information is by conducting hearings, in which witnesses are invited to testify before the committee on the topic at hand. While committee reports and transcripts of hearings are published and distributed very selectively, they can serve as sources of legislative intent.

Legislative Journals

The Journal of the Senate and the Journal of the Assembly provide a record of legislative activity in the California Senate and Assembly. While most of the information in the journals merely summarizes what has taken place on the floor of the Senate and Assembly or in committee (e.g., floor votes, readings of bills, etc.), the text of amendments to bills as well as selective committee reports are included in the journals.

Weekly and Final Histories

At the close of each week, the Senate and Assembly each publish a Weekly History that provides a listing of all actions taken on each bill introduced during the session, including referrals to committees. At the end of the session, the Senate and Assembly each publish a Final History that covers the entire session. The Histories are useful in determining how far a particular bill went in the legislative process as well as determining which legislative committee(s) considered a particular bill.

Law Revision Commission Recommendations

The California Law Revision Commission, created in 1953, is charged with considering and recommending changes in the law, including proposed uniform laws. The Law Revision Commission's written recommendations are printed and sent to both houses of the legislature, the Legislative Counsel, the Governor, and the legislative committees that will be deliberating on the recommendations. Until the mid-1980s, once a committee approved a bill implementing a Law Revision Commission recommendation, it would formally adopt the Commission materials submitted to the legislature regarding the recommendation as evidence of the legislative intent. While this practice is no longer followed, these commission materials are still used by attorneys and the courts as evidence of legislative intent when the recommendations have been adopted by the legislature.

3. Locating Sources of California Legislative History

Basic Steps in Compiling California Legislative History

If the piece of legislation you are interested in was enacted into law (thereby becoming a statute), begin with step 1 below. If the legislation was never enacted, begin with step 3.

• Step 1: Look Up Your Statute in the Code

  The California annotated statutory codes sometimes include references to relevant legislative history materials, including committee reports published in the Senate and Assembly journals (see step 4 below) as well as Law Revision Commission recommendations (see step 5 below). The code may also refer to relevant law journal articles and/or cases that discuss the statute's legislative history. For guidance on how to find a statute in one of the annotated codes, consult the USC Law Library guide Finding California Statutes, Regulations, and Related Cases.

  The annotated code is also a good source to identify the enacted year and chapter number for the particular act in which you are interested. In the code, you will typically see immediately after each statutory section a parenthetical note that provides the year and chapter number of the act that created that section (e.g., "Added by Stats. 1994, c. 1009"). And if your code section was subsequently amended, the note will also include the year(s) and chapter number(s) of the amending act(s) (e.g., "Amended by Stats. 1995, c. 823").

  It is important that you identify which chaptered law introduced the particular statutory language in which you are interested. In the annotated code, there will be statutory notes accompanying the code section to help you determine if the language you are interested in was contained in the original version of the code section or whether it was added in one of the subsequent amendments. Once you determine this, you can then select the appropriate chaptered law number to use in your research.

  Finally, for acts passed since 1994, West's Annotated California Codes provides the bill number in addition to the chapter number in the parenthetical notes (e.g., Stats. 1994, c. 1009 (S.B. 1927)). The bill number will be of help to you when using some of the research tools discussed in this guide.

• Step 2: Consult the Chaptered Law

  Once you have the year and chapter number of the act in which you are interested, you can look up the chaptered law in Statutes and Amendments to the Codes (located at the beginning of the Library's California section on the Main Floor). This statutory publication is organized by year and chapter number.

  In addition to containing the text of each chaptered law, the last volume for each year (since 1968) contains a "Summary Digest," which includes the summaries of the chaptered laws produced by the Legislative Counsel. The Summary Digest will also provide the bill number for each chaptered law. If you are looking at a chaptered law enacted prior to 1968, you can consult the "Table of Laws Enacted" for your year (located in the first volume for that year), which lists the bill number that corresponds to each chapter number.

  Chaptered laws enacted since 1993 can also be found online on the Official California Legislative Information website. From this site's Statutes page, you can pull up a chaptered law by entering your chapter number, year, and/or one or more keywords (as shown below):
  
  Finally, chaptered laws enacted betwen 1850 and 1995 can be accessed via the California State Assembly Publications Archive.

• Step 3: Examine the Different Versions of Your Bill and Related Committee Analyses

  The Official California Legislative Information website's Bill Information page provides access to the full text of legislative bills introduced in the California legislature since 1993 as well as the committee and floor analyses for these bills. You can search for bills on this site by using the bill number, the name of the bill's author, or by keyword (as shown below). Make sure you select the appropriate legislative session near the top of the screen and indicate the type of search you wish to conduct before entering your terms.

  

  For keyword searches, exact phrases can be placed in quotes. You can use the AND connector between terms to specify that both of them must appear in each bill and/or the OR connector to specify that either one must appear in each bill. Make sure to use all capital letters for your connectors. Finally, to pull up various endings of a root word, place an * after the root (e.g., discriminat* will retrieve bills containing either discriminate, discrimination, or discriminating).

  The screen above shows a sample keyword search for bills from both the Senate and Assembly from the 2007-08 legislative session. You can click on the "Help" button near the bottom of this screen for additional guidance on searching this website.

  Once you run your search, you will retrieve a list of the bills that meet your search criteria. If you select one of these bills, you will retrieve the "Bill Documents" page (as shown below), which allows you to check the "Status" of the bill (i.e., how far along it is (or went) in the legislative process) as well as its full "History" (i.e., all the legislative activity with respect to this bill). Under the "Bill Text" heading are links to the full text of the different versions of the bill (in both HTML and PDF). Finally, under Analyses are links to the various committee and/or floor analyses that have been written for this bill.

  
  
  

  If you wish to find different versions of a bill introduced prior to 1993, you will need to find a print or microfiche collection of California bills covering your time period. The USC Law Library's collection of bills is on microfiche and goes back to 1969.

• Step 4: Locate Committee Reports and/or Hearings
  There are a few different ways in which you can search for California committee reports and/or hearings:
• Using the Legislative Journals

  As noted above, selective legislative committee reports can be found in the Senate and Assembly Journals. Prior to 1970, these reports were published in the appendix volumes that accompany the main journal volumes.

  The Law Library has both the Senate and Assembly Journals in its print collection going back to 1850. The earlier volumes (1850-1976) are shelved in the California section on the Third Floor, while the more current volumes (1977-present) are shelved in the California section on the Main Floor. The appendix volumes for a particular year are shelved next to the main volumes for that year. Start with the journals for the year(s) when your bill was being considered by the legislature. It may also be worth consulting the journals for a few prior and subsequent years. Each year's journals will contain their own subject indexes, which are typically located in the last volume for each year.

  The Journal of the Assembly can also be accessed electronically via the California State Assembly webpage. The Assembly Journals page provides access to the Journals from 1995 to the present. There is also a link from this page to the online Publications Archive, which provides online access to Assembly Journals from 1849-1997.

• Using Online Catalogs

  Many libraries catalog individual California legislative documents that are contained in their print collections, including committee reports and hearings. USC's main library catalog HOMER as well as the Law Library's catalog ADVOCAT can both be used to identify and locate reports and hearings available on the USC campus. You can also search other library catalogs to see if the document(s) might be available at any other libraries. For guidance on searching library catalogs, consult the USC Law Library guide Finding Library Materials Through Online Catalogs.

  On the online catalog(s), you can search by keyword (e.g., California report farm subsidies), bill number (e.g., "AB 230"), and/or date. You can also search by author if you know the name of the committee that considered your bill (e.g., "California Legislature Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services"). The following two aforementioned sources may be useful in determining which committee(s) considered your bill:

  • Official California Legislative Information website's Bill Information page (for bills from 1993 to the present)
    
    As mentioned above, you can search by bill number on this site. From the list of bill documents for your bill, select "History," which will indicate which committee(s) considered your bill.
    
  • Senate or Assembly Final History (for the legislative session in which your bill was considered)
    
    

    The Law Library has a complete set of Final Histories for both the Senate and Assembly from 1969 to the present (as well as some additional selective Histories going back to 1921). These are shelved with the journals in the library's California sections on the Main Floor and Third Floor. A complete set of Histories going back to 1881 can be accessed electronically from the Assembly'sPublications Archive.

• Other Finding Aids

  Located in the Law Library's Ready Reference collection are two additional finding aids that might be helpful in at least identifying the existence of a relevant California committee report or hearing:

  • California Interim Legislative Committees and Reports (1937-1969) (KFC20 .C35)
  • Hearings and Reports of Committees of the California Legislature: A Listing (1969-1984) (KFC20 .C3)

  These publications consist of a series of booklets, arranged chronologically. Once you identify the name of the committee(s) that considered your bill, you can look up the committee(s) in the appropriate booklet(s) for your time period and see if there are any relevant reports or hearings pertaining to your bill.

  If you are able to identify a relevant item from one of these sources, you can then either search one or more online catalogs by title to see if any libraries own that item or try to obtain that item by contacting the California State Archives (discussed further below).

• Step 5: Law Revision Commission Reports

  As noted above, the recommendations of the Law Revision Commission are often cited in the annotated statutory codes. The citations will be to the Commission's publication entitled "Reports, Recommendations, and Studies." A print version of this publication can be found in the Law Library's California section on the Main Floor. It can also be accessed electronically in PDF on the Commission's online Publication Catalog. From this webpage, you can browse a list of the various Commission reports, recommendations, and studies published since 1957 and link to the full text of any one of them. Keep in mind that only the recommendations (as opposed to the annual reports and studies) can serve as evidence of legislative intent.

• Step 6: Sources of Compiled Legislative History Information

  Sometimes, you will be able to find a book or article that either brings together many of the relevant documents pertaining to a particular act or at least provides citations to and/or excerpts from these documents. Useful tools to find if such a compilation exists for the act you are researching include the library catalog, legal periodical indexes, and full text law review databases. For guidance on using these tools, consult the USC Law Library guides Finding Library Materials through Online Catalogs and How to Find Law Journal Articles. When you use these research tools to find California legislative history, make sure you include "California" as one of your search terms. You may also find it helpful to include search terms such as "legislative," "history," and/or "intent" along with your topical keywords.

Additional Resources to Consult

If you have limited success finding relevant California legislative materials using the sources available to you at USC and/or electronically, you may wish to contact one or more of the following outside resources:

• LA Law Library

  The LA Law Library, located in downtown Los Angeles, is one of the largest law libraries in the country, with a substantial number of California government documents in its collection. If you are having difficulty locating California committee reports or hearings related to a particular bill, you may want to check the LA Law Library online catalog to see if such documents are available at this library.

  Also available at the LA Law Library is a collection of California bills going back to 1876 and a microfiche set called Assembly File Analyses, prepared by the Assembly Office of Research for both Senate and Assembly bills from 1975-2003. Each analysis in this set includes a record of what action was taken on a particular bill, a digest describing the purpose of the bill, a statement of the bill's fiscal effects, and a comments section that may include additional information on the bill's intent and effect.

• California State Archives

  The State Archives, under the authority of the California Secretary of State's Office, collects legislative materials including bills, legislative committee records, author's bill files, and related legislative files from state agencies. For a fee, they will identify and photocopy materials relating to a particular bill or chaptered law. Additional information about the legislative holdings of the State Archives and their services as well as contact information for them can be found on their Legislative Resources webpage.

• Commercial Legislative History Services

  There are also some private companies that will perform California legislative history research for a fee. Below are names of three of these companies, which you can click on to access their websites.

  • Legislative Intent Service, Inc.
  • Legislative Research, Inc.
  • Legislative History & Legislative Intent