California Legislative Session: Deadlines, Process, and Leadership

The California Legislative Session is a two-year cycle, called a biennial session, that convenes on the first Monday in December of each even-numbered year and runs through November 30 of the following even-numbered year. The current 2025–2026 session opened in December 2024 and ends at midnight on November 30, 2026. Within that two-year window, lawmakers introduce and move bills under a strict schedule of deadlines, pass an annual state budget by June 15, and send measures to the Governor for signature or veto.

How the Two-Year Cycle Works

Each session is identified by the years it spans, such as 2025–2026. Newly elected legislators are sworn in and the session formally opens in December after a general election, though the real work of hearing bills begins in January of the odd-numbered year.¹ The first year is devoted to introducing legislation and moving it through committees and floor votes. The Legislature then recesses for interim study from mid-September until January, and bills that have not completed the process carry over into the second year, which moves faster toward final adjournment.²

Several scheduled recesses punctuate the cycle: a spring recess around Easter, a summer recess in July or August (which cannot begin until the budget bill has passed), the long interim study recess between the two years, and a final recess from September 1 through adjournment in the second year.³

Key Deadlines for 2026

The rhythm of each year is set by deadlines in the Joint Rules. For 2026, the second year of the current session, the major milestones are:⁴

February 20: Last day to introduce new bills.
April 24: Last day for policy committees to hear and report fiscal bills from their house of origin.
May 1: Last day for policy committees to hear and report non-fiscal bills from their house of origin.
May 15: Last day for fiscal committees to hear and report bills from their house of origin.
May 29: Last day for each house to pass non-urgency bills introduced in that house (the house-of-origin deadline).
June 15: Constitutional deadline for the Legislature to pass the budget bill.
July 2: Last day for policy committees to meet before summer recess.
August 3: Legislature reconvenes from summer recess.
August 31: Last day for each house to pass bills; final recess begins.
September 30: Last day for the Governor to sign or veto bills passed before September 1.
November 30: Session ends at midnight (sine die adjournment).

How a Bill Becomes Law

Any senator or Assembly member can author a bill. The idea goes to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Counsel, which drafts it into proper legislative language; every measure must be in “Legislative Counsel form” before introduction.⁵ Once introduced, the bill is assigned a number, read for the first time, and referred to a policy committee by the house’s Rules Committee.⁶

A bill must wait at least 30 days after introduction before it can be heard in committee, and the hearing must be noticed in the Daily File at least four days in advance. At the hearing, the author presents the bill, witnesses testify for and against it, and members vote. A bill with fiscal impact then goes to the Appropriations Committee for cost analysis before reaching the floor.

On the floor, the bill is read a second time, potentially amended, then presented for a third reading and final vote. Most bills need a simple majority: 41 votes in the Assembly or 21 in the Senate. Urgency measures and tax increases require a two-thirds supermajority of 54 in the Assembly and 27 in the Senate.⁷ After passing one house, the bill repeats the entire committee-and-floor process in the other. If the second house amends it, the bill returns to the house of origin for concurrence. Formal conference committees are provided for in the rules but are largely nonexistent in modern practice.⁸

Once a bill clears both houses, the Governor has 12 days (excluding Sundays) to sign it, let it become law without a signature, or veto it. For bills passed before September 1 and in the Governor’s possession on or after that date, the signing deadline is September 30.⁹ Signed bills are filed with the Secretary of State and assigned a chapter number. Most take effect the following January 1. Urgency statutes and budget-related appropriations take effect immediately.¹⁰

The Legislature can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in each house, but this power is essentially dormant. The last successful override was in 1979–80 under Governor Jerry Brown.¹¹ More than 8,700 vetoes have gone unchallenged since.¹²

Committees and the Suspense File

Committees are where most substantive work on legislation happens. The Senate has more than 20 standing policy committees and the Assembly more than 30, each covering a specific subject area such as health, education, or public safety.¹⁰ Bills that clear policy committees and carry a significant cost go to the Appropriations Committee in each house.

Appropriations operates a mechanism called the suspense file. Bills exceeding a cost threshold (in the Senate, $50,000 from the General Fund or $150,000 from a special fund; in the Assembly, $150,000) are parked on the suspense file for additional scrutiny.¹³ Twice a year, the committees hold hearings where the fate of these bills is announced in rapid succession. Decisions are effectively made in advance, giving Appropriations chairs considerable influence over which bills live and which die.¹⁴ In the current session, Sen. Sabrina Cervantes chairs Senate Appropriations, and Buffy Wicks chairs Assembly Appropriations.

Bill Limits and Special Procedures

Beginning with the 2025–2026 session, members of both houses are limited to introducing 35 bills per two-year session, down from 50 in the Assembly and 40 in the Senate. Legislators can request a waiver to exceed the cap.¹⁵

One common workaround for the February introduction deadline is the “spot bill,” a placeholder measure that makes only a trivial change to existing law, such as altering a comma. Introducing a spot bill before the deadline reserves a bill number that can later be amended with substantive content.¹⁶ Neither house’s Rules Committee will refer a spot bill to a policy committee until it receives substantive amendments.¹⁷

Urgency Statutes

An urgency statute takes effect immediately on signing rather than the following January 1. The bill must include a statement of facts explaining why the measure is “necessary for immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety,” and both the statement and the bill must pass by a two-thirds vote in each house.¹⁸

Constitutional Amendments

Proposed amendments to the state constitution also require a two-thirds vote of each house, but they do not require the Governor’s signature. Instead, they go directly to voters at a statewide election.¹⁰

The Budget Process

The annual state budget follows its own timeline within the session. The Governor submits a proposed budget in January, releases a revised version (the May Revision) in mid-May reflecting updated revenue forecasts, and the Legislature faces a June 15 constitutional deadline to pass a balanced budget. The deadline is enforced by a rule that lawmakers forfeit their pay for every day they miss it.¹⁹ The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Alongside the main budget bill, the Legislature passes “trailer bills,” separate pieces of legislation that make the statutory changes needed to implement the budget. Trailer bills bypass the normal committee deadlines and fiscal committee review that apply to other legislation. They take effect immediately with a majority vote as long as they contain an appropriation related to the budget and are identified by number in the budget bill.²⁰ That makes trailer bills a powerful vehicle for policy changes that might face a harder road through the regular process.

The Legislature passed a $356 billion budget on June 15, 2026. Lawmakers rejected the Governor’s proposed cuts to In-Home Supportive Services, allocated $900 million for the state’s homelessness fund (nearly double the Governor’s proposal), and committed roughly $2.7 billion more for schools and community colleges than the May Revision had called for.²¹

Special Sessions

The Governor can convene the Legislature for a special or extraordinary session to address specific issues outside the regular calendar. The Governor’s proclamation defines what topics the Legislature can take up, and the Rules Committees decide whether individual bills fall within that scope.²² Bills introduced during a special session are designated with an “X” (for example, ABX1 1 for Assembly Bill 1 of the First Extraordinary Session).

Special session bills operate under different rules than regular legislation. They are exempt from the 30-day waiting period after introduction and from the regular session’s committee deadlines, but they must still comply with the 72-hour rule requiring the bill to be published before a vote.²³ Unless an urgency clause is attached, special session bills take effect on the 91st day after the special session adjourns. If the Legislature never formally adjourns a special session, it automatically ends at midnight on November 30 of the even-numbered year, along with the regular session.

Governor Newsom convened two special sessions during 2023–24 and called another for December 2, 2024, to “safeguard California values” ahead of anticipated federal policy shifts.²²

Leadership and Party Composition

Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers, a position they have maintained since 2012. The Senate has 31 Democrats and 9 Republicans; the Assembly has 62 Democrats and 18 Republicans.²⁴ Those margins comfortably exceed the two-thirds threshold needed to pass urgency measures, tax increases, and constitutional amendments without Republican support.

The Assembly is led by Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas. The Senate is led by President pro Tempore Monique Limón of Santa Barbara, who was selected in November 2025 and sworn in on January 5, 2026, becoming the 50th person to hold the position. She succeeded Mike McGuire, who was designated President Pro Tempore Emeritus.²⁵

How to Follow and Participate

All committee hearings are open to the public and streamed live on the Legislature’s website. You can testify on a bill by notifying the bill’s author in advance and preparing concise remarks for the hearing.²⁶ Written position letters submitted to committees are summarized in the official bill analyses legislators review before voting. Anyone paid to advocate before the Legislature must register with the Secretary of State as a Legislative Advocate. Bill text, hearing schedules, committee analyses, and vote records are all publicly available at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, which is maintained by the Legislative Data Center within the Office of Legislative Counsel.²⁷

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