Legal Research: California: Legislative History & Intent

Help with common legal research questions.

Locate text of bills as passed

For recent bills, see California Bill Information (1993-present). Allows search by bill number, author, or keyword. Contains full text of bills, resolutions, and constitutional amendments, and their status, history, votes, analyses, and veto messages.

Updated interface for CA Bill Information (1999-present) allows searching by keyword, bill number, chapter number, or author.

More legislative documents

California Legislative Document Archive
California session laws, legislative journals, histories, and indexes, from 1849 to 2011. Be advised that the PDF files are large and may be difficult to work with (older volumes are not keyword searchable).
Annual Digests of Legislation
Digests are summaries of significant legislation, prepared annually by the California State Senate Office of Floor Analyses, 1995-present.
Legislative Analyst's Office
The LAO is primarily responsible for fiscal analysis of budget-related initiatives, but also offers analysis of policy issues. Budget analysis from 1945-present; more extensive documents available from 1985-present.