The state of California has three forms of direct democracy and they are found in Article II of the state constitution. Those three forms are the initiative, referendum, and recall processes.
The initiative begins with presenting a petition to the California Secretary of State that includes the text of the proposed statute or
Today I will be discussing the stages of the lobbying process. These four stages were put together by my colleague, Ray LeBov. A lobbyist needs to be aware of the work to be done in each of the four stages as part of the strategic and tactical work that they do for their clients.
There are mainly two types of lobbying at the state level in California – legislative and regulatory. Some advocates may add budgetary and procurement lobbying to this list, but the main two types involve lobbying the legislative and executive branches of state government. At its core, legislative lobbying is advocating for or against legislation
Negotiating bills and amendments in the California legislative process is an important skill for lobbyists and others to have as they work measures through this process.
Many advocates spend their time supporting or opposing bills on policy or fiscal grounds and they don’t engage in the actual negotiation of bill language for any number
While the legislative publications of the California State Assembly and California State Senate have the same names and are intended to serve the same purposes, when we look a little bit more closely, there are several keen differences between the Senate’s and the Assembly’s legislative publications.
The Assembly Daily Journal and the Senate Daily
During California’s last legislative session, the 2018 legislative session, the Legislature and Governor enacted 1,016 new laws – most of which took effect on January 1, 2019. This particular statistic raises the age old question – Is the California Legislature too much of a bill factory?
I will leave the answer to that question,
The determination of legislative intent is important because there are instances in which there are legitimate legal disputes between the parties as to what statutory language may mean or what was intended by the language. In these cases, both parties will attempt to argue that their interpretation is the correct one that should be
The committees of the California Legislature can conduct several types of hearings including bill hearings, investigative or oversight hearings, and informational hearings. Most hearings have a similar purpose, which is to educate the legislators and their staff about the subject matter that has come before them for consideration. Bill hearings are obviously those that
There are federal and state judicial branches of government and separate court systems at both of these levels of government. The federal courts are established in Article III of the US Constitution. California’s courts are established in Article VI of the state Constitution.
Article III of the US Constitution contains three sections. Section 1
California’s Commission on State Mandates derives its power from Article XIII B, Section 6 of the California State Constitution, which deals with a government spending limitation.
Section 6 of Article XIII B provides that whenever the Legislature or any state agency mandates a new program or a higher level of service on any local