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Civ. Code, § 53.7 · Part 2. PERSONAL RIGHTS

Civ. Code, § 53.7

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) A statute, ordinance, or other state or local rule, regulation, or enactment shall not deny a minority group political structure equal protection of the law by altering, restructuring, or reordering the policy decisionmaking process in a manner that burdens the ability of members of the minority group to effect the enactment of future legislation, solely with respect to a matter that inures primarily to the benefit of, or is primarily of interest to, one or more minority groups.

(b) (1) A member of a minority group, as defined in paragraph (2), may bring a civil action challenging the validity of a statute, ordinance, or other state or local rule, regulation, or enactment, pursuant to subdivision (a).

(2) For purposes of this section, “minority group” means a group of persons who share in common any race, ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation.

(c) A statute, ordinance, or other state or local rule, regulation, or enactment shall be determined valid in an action brought pursuant to this section, only upon a showing by the government that the burden imposed by the statute, ordinance, or other state or local rule, regulation, or enactment satisfies both of the following criteria:

(1) The burden is necessary to serve a compelling government interest.

(2) The burden is no greater than necessary to serve the compelling government interest.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2014, Ch. 912, Sec. 2. (AB 2646) Effective January 1, 2015.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=53.7.
Text hash
sha256 91a680754047b247fa1368c60b3eea3df0f19edb5b70a9cf9b494437f1a07402
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.