Crimes Explained: California Constitution

The California Constitution in its official text, annotated. Each section is color-coded to show the rights it guarantees, the powers it grants and the limits it sets, and broken into its parts.

• Select any section to open its own page with the official text beside a breakdown: each right, power, limit or duty in it, who holds it, who is bound, what it requires or forbids, and its conditions and exceptions. Breakdowns use only the section's own text. The Constitution has no official section headings; section names are descriptions written for this site.
• In the official text, rights are green, grants of power are highlighted in orange, limits on government are red, and conditions by their if or unless are purple italics. Each section ends with the Legislature's note of when it was added or amended.
• Dotted-underlined words are legal terms. Tap or hover to see what they mean.
• The colored bar on each card shows the section's main kind: a right, a power, a limit, a duty, or structure (offices, terms, elections and procedures).