The Old Way of Doing Legislative Intent Statements

In reading Code sections recently (yes, I am an acknowledged legislative geek), I came across a statute from 1968 in the California Unemployment Insurance Code. I found that Code section unique in that it uses language that we do not find in bills today.

Today, readers will usually see in bills, and recent statutes, the opening phrase: “The Legislature finds and declares….” In other instances, readers will see the phrase, “It is the intent of the Legislature to….” However, in this UI Code section, the opening phrase is instead: “The Legislature hereby makes the following declaration of purpose and intent….”

While there is nothing inherently wrong with the language from the 1968 statutes, it is simply an example of a change in language used by the Office of Legislative Counsel in drafting bills and statutes.

This particular Code section also contains a provision that begins, “It is the public policy of the State of California to….” While older statutes do occasionally make a “statement of policy,” in today’s drafting of California bills and statutes, we generally see one of two provisions: Either a statement of legislative intent, or a legislative finding and declaration.

Any of these statements, whether of legislative policy, intent, or findings and declarations, they are generally only relied upon by the judicial branch of state government when there is some ambiguity in the underlying statutory language. Any of these approaches can be helpful to the judiciary when interpreting an ambiguous statute, but today we generally do not use “public policy” statements in California statutes.