California is governed as a republic, with three branches of government, the executive branch consisting of the Governor of California and the other elected constitutional officers, the legislative branch, the California State Legislature, consisting of the Assembly and Senate, and the judicial branch consisting of the Supreme Court of California and lower courts. The State also allows direct participation of the electorate by initiative, referendum, recall, and ratification.
Constitution and law
Main articles: California Constitution and California lawCalifornia's constitution is one of the longest collections of laws in the world, taking up 110 pages. Part of this length is caused by the fact that many voter initiatives take the form of a constitutional amendment.
Many of the individual rights clauses in the state constitution have been construed as providing rights even broader than the Bill of Rights in the federal constitution. An excellent example is the Pruneyard Shopping Center case, in which "free speech" rights beyond those required by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution were found in the California Constitution by the California courts.
Executive branch
Main article: California executive branchCalifornia's executive branch is headed by the Governor. Other executive positions are the Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Controller, Insurance Commissioner, and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. All offices are elected separately to concurrent four-year terms. Each officer may be elected to an office a maximum of two times. Other statewide elected offices that no longer exist include the Comptroller (which became Controller in 1862), the Surveyor General (1849–1926), and the Clerk of the Supreme Court.
The Governor has the powers and responsibilities to: sign or veto laws passed by the Legislature, including a line item veto; appoint judges, subject to ratification by the electorate; propose a state budget; give the annual State of the State Address ; command the state militia; and grant pardons for any crime, except cases involving impeachment by the Legislature. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor also serve as ex officio members of the University of California Board of Regents.
The Lieutenant Governor is the President of the California Senate and acts as the governor when the Governor is unable to execute the office, including whenever the Governor leaves the state. As the offices are elected separately, the two could conceivably be from separate parties; currently this is the case with Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi. This has led to interesting scenarios; when Republican Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb was temporarily in power while Democratic Governor Jerry Brown was out of the state, Curb appointed judges to vacant seats and signed or vetoed bills which Brown would have vetoed or signed, respectively.
The government proper
See also: List of California state agenciesAs for the actual state government that the Governor oversees, it is organized into several dozen departments, of which most (but not all) have been grouped together (somewhat confusingly) into agencies to reduce the number of people who report directly to the Governor. For example, the California Department of Transportation and the California Highway Patrol are part of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.
Many of the groupings are bizarre and counterintuitive. The Department of Managed Health Care is part of Business, Transportation, and Housing, rather than the Health and Human Services Agency. And the Department of Industrial Relations (which, among many duties, inspects most elevators in California) is part of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, not Business, Transportation and Housing.
Generally (again, there are several exceptions), a Cabinet-level head of an agency in California holds the title of "secretary", while the head of a department holds the title of "director." Exceptions include the head of the Department of the California Highway Patrol, whose title is actually "commissioner."
The vast majority of state government agencies and departments are headquartered in Sacramento or in parts of Sacramento County near the city of Sacramento; in turn, the larger agencies and departments also have local offices around the state which report to headquarters in Sacramento. Notable exceptions include the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Department of Industrial Relations, which are both headquartered in San Francisco.
Legislative branch of California
Main article: California State LegislatureConstitutional basis
The basic form of law in California is a republic, governed by democratically elected state Senators and Assembly members. The governing law is a constitution, interpreted by the California Supreme Court, whose members are appointed by the Governor, and ratified at the next general election. The constitution can be changed by initiatives passed by voters. Initiatives can be proposed by the governor, legislature, or by popular petition, giving California one of the most flexible legal systems in the world. The constitution makes the California legislature bicameral, with a Senate and an Assembly.
Redistricting
California's legislature has engaged in some rather unusual redistricting practices (noted in detail in Politics of California#Bi-partisan gerrymandering). The result is that virtually all Assembly and Senate district lines have been drawn in a way so as to favor one party or the other, and it is rare for a district to suddenly shift party allegiance.
Codification in California
In 1872, under the influence of David Dudley Field, California began codifying its laws. California was one of the earliest American states (the first was New York), to codify its statutes into named codes (Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, and so on).
Prior to the 1840s, legislatures in all common law jurisdictions passed "Acts" in a completely haphazard manner and published them in the order passed. The result was that to determine what the current statutory law was, a lawyer would have to find the earliest relevant act and then trace a path from past to present through a series of acts passed at different dates to determine which rules had been expanded, overruled, or superseded. The advantage of a code is that once the legislature gets into the habit of writing acts as amendments to the code, then the official copy of the code will reflect what the current statutory law is.
Since then, virtually all states and the federal government have followed the lead of California and New York and codified their statutes. However, they have preferred to write a single code with a universal numbering system. Today, only California, New York, and Texas have systems of separate subject-specific codes.
Many of the code sections have become famous throughout the U.S., like Business and Professions Code Section 17200 (unfair competition), Code of Civil Procedure Section 425.16 (anti-SLAPP special motion), Penal Code Section 187 (murder), and Penal Code Sections 667 and 1170.12 (both codifying the state three-strikes law). Also, the Federal Rules of Evidence were inspired by the success of the California Evidence Code.
The Big Five
The Big Five is an informal institution of California government, consisting of the governor, the Assembly speaker, the Assembly minority leader, the Senate president pro tempore, and the Senate minority leader. Members of the Big Five meet in private to discuss bills pending in the legislature. Because the party caucus leaders in California's legislature also control the party's legislative campaign funds, the leaders wield tremendous power over their caucus members. They are thus able to exert some influence in their caucus's votes in Big Five meetings. Therefore, if all five members agree to support a Bill, it will likely pass into law.
The Legislature and the Executive Branch
The Governor has the powers and responsibilities to: sign or veto laws passed by the Legislature, including a line item veto; propose a state budget; give the annual State of the State Address and grant pardons for any crime, except cases involving impeachment by the Legislature.
As part of the system of checks and balances, the Legislature has statutory influence over the funding, organization, and procedures used by agencies of the executive branch. It also has the authority to appoint citizens to policy-making committees in the executive branch and to designate members of the Legislature to serve on agency boards. Many appointments made by the governor are subject to legislative approval.
Judicial branch
The judicial system of California is the largest in the United States that is fully staffed by professional law-trained judges; a person must be admitted
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