Most of the most useful legislative history information for California statutes will be found in the bill text, history, and analysis sections described in the previous tab; however, insight into legislative intent can also be found from the following additional sources.
Authors of law review articles often gain access to materials generally unavailable and may offer an analysis of legislative intent.
Citations to articles can be found using:
Once you obtain the citation, obtain the full-text version in print or online:
Print: LRC 1st Mezzanine & 2nd Floor; current issues in Reserve Room. (Check the LRC Catalog to confirm that the LRC owns the desired title and/or volume.)
HeinOnline: PDFs of U.S. law reviews, secondary sources, legal treatises, legislative materials, and more.
Westlaw: Retrieve by citation or construct search.
LexisNexis: Retrieve by citation or construct search.
LegalTrac: Limited number of full-text articles contained in the database.
The Assembly Journals provide an accurate account of proceedings of each house, though not a verbatim report of debates.
Coverage includes:
The bound editions of the Journals include an alphabetical subject index and a bill action index. The Journals can also be useful for determining the committees involved with particular bills. The Journal Appendixes contain administrative reports of state departments, 1881-1943. Assembly committee reports can be found in the Assembly Journal Appendixes, 1957-1970. The Senate Journal Appendixes contain Joint Interim Committee Reports and Senate committee reports, 1947-1970.
ASSEMBLY JOURNAL
SENATE JOURNAL
Over 20,000 sections of California statutory law have been added, amended or repealed on the recommendation of the California Law Revision Commission (CLRC). While its reports are not conclusive, they do carry great weight in statutory analysis.
To determine whether your section of the California Code was affected by Commission Recommendations, use the CLRC search tool.
When legislation has been adopted as the result of a CLRC recommendation, a citation will be included in the annotated codes and a hyperlink or URL included in the Comments in the Analyses section of the Legislative Counsel’s website. The CLRC makes many of its documents produced since 1957 available free of charge in PDF format on the Commission website under the "Reports" tab and provides information for purchasing reports that are still in print.
A complete set of printed CLRC Reports is located on site (LRC California KFC 79 .A3). Separately published reports or recommendations can be located by executing a title search (from the citation in the annotated codes) or author search (e.g., california law revision commission) in USD’s online catalog.
The State Archives also provides research service for those located around the Sacramento area who are seeking legislative history information. If a researcher can specify a particular chapter or bill, Archives staff will identify and photocopy materials in its collection relating to the bill(s) for a per-page fee.
ArchivesWeb@sos.ca.gov
916-653-2246
See California State Archives Legislative Resources: http://www.sos.ca.gov/archives
A much more detailed explanation of every available source for compiling a California Legislative History is contained in Chapter 4 of Henke’s California Law Guide (KFC 74 .H46 2006). Copies are shelved in the LRC Reserve Room and the Reference Collection. Older editions may be borrowed.
Other useful information is contained at the California State Legislature website.
Legislative History & Intent provides fee based research and a free library of points & authorities about using legislative documents.
Legislative Intent Service, Inc. provides fee based research.
