I am looking for a public domain site that concentrates on California
law.  I need a site that is very general, as many areas of law as
possible.  The site must describe the elements of current laws in
California.  I need a .gov site and not simply a California state site
or a bar association site. It must come from the federal government.

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 21 Dec 2003 00:47 PST

hundy-ga:

Just to clarify, am I correct in thinking that you are seeking a
website from a branch of the US federal government, discussing as many
areas of California law as possible, as opposed to any .gov site,
which would therefore include the ca.gov sites of the California state
government?

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 21 Dec 2003 00:51 PST

Sorry, hit the wrong key before I was finished typing...

What I was going to continue with was:

If so, would you accept links to the Law Library of Congress as your
answer? There is some information there regarding California State
laws, however the majority of the information available online is
provided (and managed by) the State Government of California.

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Clarification of Question by hundy-ga on 21 Dec 2003 13:10 PST

Yes, the question I am asking is only for federal government sites. 
The Library of Congress is covered but anything managed by a state
government would not.  So you are on the correct track with any
federal resource that describes California law.  As many as possible
if you could.  Thanks.

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 21 Dec 2003 20:36 PST

Unfortunately, the information that I am able to find online from the
Law Library of Congress consists of indirect and direct links to
various websites of the State of California, which is not what you are
looking for.

If I come across additional information that meets your criteria, I
will post an update; otherwise, if another Researcher is able to find
something more appropriate, perhaps they can answer this question for
you.

Regards,

aht-ga

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Clarification of Question by hundy-ga on 22 Dec 2003 08:48 PST

I have just discovered that technically state law is public domain, so
those links from the library of Congress and state .gov sites, sorry
for the misunderstanding.

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Clarification of Question by hundy-ga on 22 Dec 2003 08:49 PST

I meant to say that state .gov links and those from the library of
COngress will suffice.

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 22 Dec 2003 10:24 PST

hundy-ga:

My apologies, I should have asked in greater detail about the
reasoning behind the original request to not use State of California
websites.

I will compile the list of relevant websites for you, and post it as the Answer.

hundy-ga:

Thank you for your Question regarding public domain websites that
cover the laws of the State of California.

For the purposes of this Answer, 'public domain' refers to websites
that are not owned/operated by private organizations, not-for-profit
organizations, or lobby groups of any kind. The focus is on websites
operated by federal or state government departments/entities,
providing non-subjective access to the laws of California.

The best place to start is the Library of Congress - Law Library. The
Library of Congress has the federal mandate to record and make
available to the general public any information that relates to the
interests of the nation. In 1832, the Library of Congress was directed
by Congress to create a separate collection related specifically to
the laws of the nation (federal and state) and to any international
law that has impact on the nation.

The Law Library of Congress maintains a "Guide To Law Online", which
includes a page of links to public domain websites related to the laws
of California. This webpage can be found at:

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"GUIDE TO LAW ONLINE:United States - California"
http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/us-ca.html

On this page, you will find links to the State Constitution, the
California Office of Administrative Law (maintains public access to
the Regulations of the State), links to all of the various levels of
the state courts (at least, the ones who maintain online presence),
and links to the resources of the State Legislature. For this latter
category, please note that the Legislative Counsel of California is
the publicly authorized body responsible for developing and publishing
the Laws of the State, which in turn are passed by the State
Legislature. Therefore, the Legislative Counsel of California (which
describes itself as a "nonpartisan public agency") is the most useful
resource for understanding the law making process, and the laws that
are developed and passed in California.

The contents of the Law Library of Congress' California page are
maintained by the Law Library whenever updates are needed, so I will
not attempt to recreate it here; while public domain links tend to
change less often than private sector ones, changes do still occur so
it is best to refer directly to the Law Library of Congress' page.

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The California State Library, a public agency of the State of
California, maintains several resources that you may find of interest.
Included in their collection is a collection of Laws similar to the
Library of Congress' collection, with specific focus on the laws of
the State of California. However, this collection is only accessible
through the general Catalog of the State Library, they do not have
dedicated webpages covering this collection. They do have a dedicated
section covering the state's Library Laws (laws that cover libraries)
that can be found at:

http://www.library.ca.gov/laws/index.cfm

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The California State Library also provides online access to the
reports of the California Research Bureau, the agency commissioned by
the State Legislature to provide objective, non-partisan research and
analysis of any research topic required by the members of the
Legislature. The findings of the CRB directly influence the
development of new laws, and amendment to existing laws.

http://www.library.ca.gov/html/statseg2a.cfm

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The California Legislative Counsel maintains a webpage allowing you
direct access to search any and all sections of the California State
Code for specified keywords.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html

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A similar capability exists for the California Code Regulations, and
is maintained by the California Office of Administrative Law.

http://ccr.oal.ca.gov/ 

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Additional links you may find of interest, but that do not fit within
the "public domain" definition, include:

FindLaw
http://california.lp.findlaw.com/ca01_codes/

- this website is a private organization that provides basic search
capabilities for past federal and state legal cases, along with links
to the various bar associations. This definitely does not fit into the
definition of acceptable websites for this Answer; I mention it here
only for your information.

Cornell University Law School - Legal Information Institute
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/state_statutes.html

- a reasonably comprehensive catalog of state law websites
- the reason I am including this here is because the links are
organized by topics (Agriculture, Health, etc.) and provides direct
access to the relevant section of the state code. A great place to
start when you know the topic of interest, and don't want to hunt
through reams of state code looking for the appropriate section.

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Search Strategy:

law library congress california
california state code

(along with personal knowledge)

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I hope that this information helps Answer your Question. Please let me
know if you would like any aspect of this Answer clarified.

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Excellent work, nice research, nice presentation. Thank you.