Component parts of a California bill’s title

Article IV, Section 9 of the California Constitution requires each bill to have a title. The constitutional provision states: “A statute shall embrace but one subject, which shall be expressed in its title. If a statute embraces a subject not expressed in its title, only the part not expressed is void. A statute may not be amended by reference to its title.” The title essentially provides a broad description of the bill.

In addition, Joint Rule 7, “Title of Bill,” provides: “The title of every bill introduced shall convey an accurate idea of the contents of the bill and shall indicate the scope of the act and the object to be accomplished. In amending a code section, the mere reference to the section by number is not deemed sufficient.” A bill’s title usually has a few words (two to five on average) about what the bill “relates to.” These few descriptive words follow the phrase: “, relating to….”

Because of the constitutional provision, a bill’s title must be legally sufficient to describe the general subject of the bill’s contents. An attorney at the Office of Legislative Counsel prepares the title after the contents of the bill have been drafted.

As each bill is required to contain one, broad subject matter, that subject needs to be properly expressed in the title of the bill. Recall that, pursuant to the California Constitution, an enacted bill is void if the subject is not expressed in the title.

As a general rule, the title must be broad enough to be germane to the same general subject. Therefore, the title must identify generally the subject of the bill. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that a person is able to determine what the bill concerns. In addition, the legal purpose of the title requirement is to prevent the concealment of the true nature of the provisions of the bill from the legislature and the public.

As a result, the title of the bill serves as a means of identifying the subject of the bill and so it is important that the title properly describes what a bill is about, rather than what the bill intends or how the bill accomplishes its purpose.

Keep in mind that the requirement of Article IV, Section 9 is mandatory and a bill that fails to comply with this requirement is void. In order to comply with this requirement, the title basically needs to give notice about the subject matter of the bill.

As a general rule, a bill title begins with the phrase, “an act relating to.” For example, SB 5 from the 2019-20 California Legislative Session has the following title: “An act to add Section 41202.6 to the Education Code, to add Part 4 (commencing with Section 55900) to Division 2 of Title 5 of, and to add Division 6 (commencing with Section 62300) to Title 6 of, the Government Code, and to add Section 97.68.1 to the Revenue and Taxation Code, relating to local government finance.” This language expresses the subject matter (“local government finance”) of the bill in its title.

The practice in California and many other states is to include the references to code sections and whether the bill adds, amends or repeals specific code sections. The title of a bill should designate the subject of the bill in general terms, not in detail. The title is broader than the subject matter that is dealt with in the body of the bill, but it may not be narrower.

This is why a reader of a bill might see in the title of a bill, “relating to personal income taxation,” rather than a title such as: “An act relating to personal exemptions under the income tax law for persons 65 years of age or older.” If a title were to include a detailed description of the subject of the bill (such as in the second example), then the title would have to express every detail in the bill; otherwise, the detail of a bill that was not included in that title might be deemed invalid by a court in this state.

On the other hand, a bill title so broad may not comply with the constitutional requirement in Section 9. For example, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the title “Relating to the activities regulated by state government” failed to identify a single subject as it was so broad that it did “little more than define the universe with respect to which the legislature is empowered to act.” The California Supreme Court ruled that a bill’s title “fiscal affairs” was too broad and therefore invalid.

In summary, the bill’s Title is composed of at least two mandatory items:

An act to ….

Relating to ….

 And, sometimes the Title includes one or more of the following statements after the “relating to” clause:

making an appropriation therefor.

declaring the urgency thereof, to take effect immediately.

making an appropriation therefor, to take effect immediately, bill related to the budget.

to take effect immediately, tax levy.

calling an election, to take effect immediately.

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