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California - New Statutes, Pending Legislation, and State Legislative History

Session Laws and Pending Legislation:

Session laws are found in the Statutes of California, California Legislative Service (West) and California Advance Legislative Service (Deering). Pending legislation can be tracked online for free at both the Senate’s portal or through the Assembly’s portal. At both sites, bills can be searched by bill number, key word(s), or author(s), and under both houses or of each house individually. The Senate search page also provides daily updates on legislation within both houses. They are also accessible in Westlaw and Lexis in the following databases:

Westlaw - California Bills:

Westlaw - Session Laws:

Lexis - California Bills:

Lexis - Session Laws:

For more information on how to cite pending legislation in California, click here. For details on how a bill becomes a law within California, and a pictorial diagram of the process, prepared by Legislative Research, Inc., please click here.

Legislative History for California Laws:

Both Lexis and Westlaw provide databases with some legislative history information for California state laws.

Westlaw:

Lexis:

For information on researching California Legislative History, it is also advisable to consult a research guide that lays out the various sources involved and where they can be located. Many law schools and public law libraries in California have such guides listed on their websites (note that any references to call numbers listed in these guides will be to local locations):

For a more general guide on how to research the legislative process of California on the Internet prepared by the Legislative Counsel for the State of California, click here.