December 29, 2016

List of California legislation (bills) that became Law in 2016

We recently became curious as to the comprehensive list of legislation signed and vetoed in California in any given year. We then set out to find a comprehensive list not limited to any particular subject matter (or just the "popular bills" the media liked) and low and behold we could not find one (at least available to the public). Governor Browns office also does not issue a comprehensive yearly list but rather issues many press releases throughout the year listing all the bills signed or vetoed on a particular day. Most of these press releases contain many bills. Some only a few. 

In 2016 the Legislature sent Governor Brown 1,059 pieces of legislation, 898 of which the governor signed into law. He vetoed 159 and two become law without signing. We show 5,103 bills were introduced in the State Legislature. Only 20.75% of the bills made it to the Governor's desk and only a mere 17.6% were signed and became law. If we assume each bill is an average of 7 pages long (and some are much longer) that would be about 6,300 pages of new laws! Happy reading! Some of these are real gems.....only became possible through the hard work of lobbyists and special interests! Quite frankly I'm pretty impressed with our 78 year old Governor's ability to wade thru this mess. Having a full time state legislature (unlike most states) is quite frankly both a blessing and a curse.

Now keep in mind that this list is only "legislation" signed or vetoed in 2016. It does NOT include changes in the California administrative code (non legislative) and related "codes" passed by State agencies. Nor does it include voter initiatives passed in 2016. Nor does it include cases decided by the various appellate level courts in California that can greatly affect how a given law is interpreted or enforced, or create all new obligations in and of themselves ("Judicial law" or precedent). This also does not include local laws or ordinances passed by various California counties (58) or other municipalities (482) or other governmental entities. Finally this list only includes laws passed or vetoed in 2016. Some of these take effect January 1, 2017 (typically) but many may not take effect until later or some even earlier (rare). Also keep in mind there are laws passed in 2014-2015 that may just now be taking effect in 2017.

There really is something in this 37 page list for everyone. We were not able to put it in chronological order due to the fact that it was hard enough to avoid duplication with the many press releases that came out in a 12 month period. The order signed is also really not important. What is important is the date the law becomes effective, which can vary for each piece of legislation. The veto and signing statements are hyperlinked in the list but the legislation passed/signed is not. The fastest way to look it up is by typing in the bill number here and making sure you have the right year (2016). Let us know if you see any duplicative entries or if you think we have missed something. The last date anything was signed or vetoed was September 30, 2016 and we are not aware of anything still pending on the Governors desk as of this writing.

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