Constitution of California in the context of "Government of California"

The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard.

Established in the Constitution of California, the governor's responsibilities also include submitting the budget, ensuring that state laws are enforced, and making the annual State of the State address to the California State Legislature. The position was created in 1849, the year before California became a state.

The California Constitutional Conventions were two separate constitutional conventions that took place in California during the nineteenth century which led to the creation of the modern Constitution of California. The first, known as the 1849 Constitutional Convention of Monterey, held in September and October 1849 in advance of California attaining U.S. statehood the following year, adopted the state's original constitution. This document maintains jurisdiction along with the current constitution which was ratified on May 7, 1879, following the 1879 Constitutional Convention of Sacramento. Article 3 Section 2 of the current Constitution references the original boundaries as stated in the 1849 Constitution at Article 12. The result of Progressive mistrust of elected officials, this later constitution took a full year to finalize (March 1878 to March 1879) and has been described as "the perfect example of what a constitution ought not to be". Multiple calls for a third state constitutional convention have been raised during the past quarter-century, but none has thus far gained widespread political momentum.

The Spanish language is the second-most commonly spoken language in California, after the English language, spoken by 28.18 percent (10,434,308) of the population (in 2021). Californian Spanish (español californiano) is a set of varieties of Spanish spoken in California, including the historical variety known as Californio Spanish (español californio).

Spanish was first introduced to California in 1542 and has since become deeply entwined with California's cultural landscape and history. Spanish was the official administrative language in California through the Spanish and Mexican periods until 1848, when Alta California was ceded from Mexico to the United States following the U.S. Conquest of California. Early American governments in California protected the rights of Spanish speakers in the 1849 Constitution of California, but those constitutional protections were removed in 1879.

The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that establishes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Texas and enumerates the basic rights of its citizens. The current document was adopted on February 15, 1876, and is the seventh constitution in Texas history (including the Mexican constitution of 1872). The previous six were adopted in 1827 (while Texas was still part of Mexico and half of the state of Coahuila y Tejas), 1836 (the Constitution of the Republic of Texas), 1845 (upon admission to the United States), 1861 (at the beginning of the American Civil War), 1866 (at the end of the American Civil War), and 1869. Texas constitutional conventions took place in 1861, 1866, 1868–69, and 1875.

The constitution is the second-longest state constitution in the United States (exceeded only by the Constitution of Alabama) and is also the third-most amended state constitution (only the Alabama and California constitutions have been amended more often). From 1876 to 2024 (following the 88th Legislature), the Texas Legislature proposed 714 constitutional amendments. Of that total, 530 were approved by the electorate, 181 were defeated, and 3 never made it on the ballot. Most of the amendments are due to the document's highly restrictive nature: the constitution stipulates that the state of Texas has only those powers explicitly granted to it; there is no counterpart of the federal Necessary and Proper Clause.