What Are the Component Parts of California’s Codes?

California has over 155,000 individual statutes. Those statutes are placed in one of 29 Codes, which this state gives a name to, as opposed to the federal government and some states, which provide a number. California’s 29 Codes begin with the Business and Professions Code and conclude with the Welfare and Institutions Code, with 27 other Codes in between.

What are the component parts of these 29 Codes? 

In the Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 6 notes that division, part, chapter, article, and section headings contained in the Codes are not to be deemed to govern, limit, modify, or in any manner affect the scope, meaning, or intent of the provisions of any division, part, chapter, article, or section hereof. So, those are the component parts of the Codes.

Just as a bill has a format or hierarchy, so does each code. Each code has its own hierarchy of provisions and organization, but generally the format is:

Code

Title

Division

Part

Chapter

Article

Section

Does it get narrower than section? Yes. In the California Public Utilities Code, Section 10 defines the term “section” to mean a section of the code unless some other statute is specifically mentioned. The term “subdivision” means a subdivision of the section in which that term occurs unless some other section is expressly mentioned.

Each code section is additionally organized into various subdivisions:

Section __.

(a) Subdivision

(1) Paragraph

(A) Subparagraph

(i) Clause

(I) Subclause