In California, we each have two State Legislators that represent us on State matters — one is our State Senator and the other is our Assemblyman. If you don’t know who yours is, you can find them here
The legislative year starts the September prior to the calendar year (so they are working on 2021 now even though it’s still 2020). From September to December, each legislator decides what they want to introduce for the next year. September is really the month you want to try to get into your legislator’s faces about the bills you would like to see introduced so that they have time to consider it, draft the bill, refine it, etc. But it’s still not too late!
Bills are introduced in January. Between January and August, the bills are revised, voted on, revised some more, voted on again… The final vote is usually at the end of August, so if it didn’t pass by August, its done for the year. If it is a bill your legislator feels strongly about, (s)he may choose to re-introduce it the next year.
Once bills are passed, they have to go to the governor to be signed into law. if he doesn’t like the bill he can simply veto it — and it’s dead. The last day for the governor to sign bills is usually the end of September. Here is the calendar.
So if you have any ideas about new legislature that you’d like to see enacted, or changes to be made to existing legislature, now is the time to contact your representatives. And if you like any of my ideas, please suggest them to your representatives.