The legislative calendar establishes a schedule for the 2013-14 Legislative Session and provides important deadlines to the legislative process. While this is a general outline for the legislative year, the Senate and Assembly Daily Files contain the scheduled events for each day the Legislature is in session. These include committee meetings, scheduled hearings, and Governor’s vetoes. For more information on the Legislative Calendar and Schedules, click here.
January 1 – Bills passed in the previous year take effect, unless they have been designated as “urgency” bills with immediate implementation, or a bill that will take extra time to implement (often given a July 1st effective date).
January 6 – Legislature reconvenes for the second half of a two-year session and in addition to legislators finishing work on bills introduced in 2013 they will introduce many more.
January 24 – Last day to submit new bill drafts to the Office of the Legislative Counsel. The Legislative Counsel takes the verbiage (sometimes makes adjustments) and puts it into bill form for the legislators to consider.
January 31 – Last day for each house to pass bills introduced in that house in 2013.
February 21 – Last day for bills to be introduced for the 2014 year. That means a bill, in the form created by the Legislative Counsel, needs to have an Author (a legislator) and a number assigned to it (ex: SB 123 or AB 123) in order to be introduced.
April 10 – Spring Recess.
April 21 – Legislature reconvenes from Spring Recess.
May 30 – Last day to pass bills introduced in 2014 out of their house of origin. If the bill is a Senate Bill (SB 123, etc.), then it needs to pass out of the Senate by this date and be sent over to the Assembly for its action. The same is true of Assembly bills needing to pass and being sent to the Senate.
July 3 – Summer Recess begins providing the Budget has been passed.
August 4 – Legislature reconvenes from Summer Recess.
August 31 – Last day for any bill to pass to the Governor in what is termed an “enrolled” version. The “enrollment” process includes the notation of the exact date and time each bill is sent to the Governor to sign or veto, or he may allow it to become law without signing. (There is no “pocket veto” in California, unlike federal, which allows the President to kill a bill simply by not taking any action whatsoever.)
September 30 – Last day for the Governor to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature. If bills are signed by the Governor, they are CHAPTERED; in other words, filed with the Secretary of State and assigned a chapter number for reference and inclusion in the codes, of which there are 29 (Civil Code, Vehicle Code, etc.)
November 4 – General election.
November 30 – Formal adjournment of the 2013-2014 session… (“sine die”).
December 1 – 2015-2016 session begins.
For a glossary of legislative terms (including sine die), click here.