Commentary - 第418页共431页

A group of five people, dressed in professional attire, sit on chairs on a stage in front of a crowd, with a banner behind them reading “Governor Candidate Forum.” Four of the five people sitting on stage have their hands up to answer the question while a crowd of people watches in the dark.

No clear frontrunner for governor, but new poll names five with the best shot

A poll shows three Democrats and two Republicans have voter support percentages in the teens. The top two vote-getters in June will face off in November.

经过

丹·沃尔特斯

A person in medical protective clothing, wearing a face mask and a hair net, pushes a hospital gurney through a hallway inside a hospital, viewed from an open door.

She spent six of her last years in arbitration with her HMO. Her husband’s still fighting the system

Arbitrators in medical disputes are supposed to be unbiased, but this couple suspected there is an incentive to favor HMO’s in arbitration.

By Stephen Martinez

Two people face each other as they speak: the person on the left has a happy expression and her arm to her chest, while the person on the right wears a grey suit jacket and glasses. Both people are standing in a park area on a sunny day. In the background is a fence to a baseball field.

A former political ally tests LA liberals’ allegiance to Mayor Karen Bass

Mayor Karen Bass isn't vulnerable on her right, but she may be on her left, as City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a Democratic Socialist and ex-supporter, runs against her.

经过

Jim Newton

A close-up view of a person's hand holding a sign that reads "We wants answers! No more deaths!" and they stand at the front steps of a building surrounded by other people holding signs.

California promised accountability for inmate deaths in jails. A year later, no results.

Lawmakers passed a law creating a state department to review inmate deaths, but it hasn’t completed a single death review in its first year.

By David Myers

California Capitol. Photo for CALmatters by Max Whitaker

If you’re not alarmed, you should be: Who’s left to hold California’s government accountable?

Media is declining nationally, but unique pressures have made California into America’s laboratory for a dangerous experiment about what happens to the public interest when policy is made without public awareness or accountability. In just the last three weeks, four major announcements about California media indicate a troubling downward spiral is accelerating.

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David Lesher

• 1 月 24, 2018

Commentary: Supreme Court case threatens union political power

Attorney General Xavier Becerra is imploring the U.S. Supreme Court to validate laws in California and other states requiring public employees who are not union members to nevertheless pay “agency fees” to unions. Such fees, Becerra said in a brief filed last week, fairly distribute costs of negotiating contracts with the state, school districts and […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 24, 2018

Commentary: Should Legislature’s employees be unionized?

Four-plus decades ago, the Legislature and Jerry Brown, then in the first stages of his two-part governorship, decreed that public employees had the right to join unions and bargain for salaries and other working conditions. The argument for extending collective bargaining rights to state and local government workers, including teachers, was that they should have […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 22, 2018

Commentary: The yin and yang of California’s school crisis

California’s education dilemma can be stated rather simply, to wit: The state has 6 million kids in its K-12 public school system, 60 percent of them are classified as either poor or English-learners and as a group they trail badly in educational accomplishment. The state’s political leaders and education officials acknowledge what they call the […]

经过

丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 21, 2018

Commentary: Brown relents a little on school accountability

For years, Gov. Jerry Brown has preached a secular version of a religious principle called “subsidiarity,” asserting that local officials should have flexibility to act without micromanagement from Sacramento. In practice, he’s not always adhered to the principle, but has been particularly stubborn about applying it to the state’s six-million-student public education system, rejecting demands […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 18, 2018

Commentary: Brown’s worries about killing California’s golden geese

To intertwine cliches, Gov. Jerry Brown let the cat out of the bag last week and acknowledged that he’s concerned about killing the golden geese. Those geese are the few thousand Californians with the highest incomes whose taxes allow Brown and other California politicians to spend tens of billions of dollars a year and the […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 17, 2018

Commentary: Setting the record straight on two politicians

Notwithstanding the maxim about not speaking ill of the dead, sometimes it’s necessary, as historians often do, to complete the record and teach a lesson about human behavior. That brings us to two major figures in the California Legislature three decades ago, both since deceased, John Vasconcellos and Lou Papan. Both were Democratic legislators from […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 15, 2018

Commentary: Forensic report confirms Oroville Dam lapses

The verdict is in and California stands convicted of gross negligence in the construction and maintenance of the nation’s highest dam, Oroville. The dam on the Feather River came very close to failing last year, forcing the evacuation of a quarter-million people living downstream. Heavy outflows revealed structural flaws in the dam’s concrete spillway and […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 14, 2018

Commentary: Brown’s final budget reflects cautious approach

Roy Bell, who was Jerry Brown’s first budget director 43 years ago, called it a “dog-and-pony show” and it’s one of the Capitol’s longest-running rituals. Each January, usually on the 10th, journalists who cover the Capitol file into a first-floor room dedicated to news conferences and settle into fiberglass swivel chairs that would command high […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 11, 2018

Commentary: In-and-out moves make Dem vs. Dem contests more likely

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer and former Republican Congressman Doug Ose are polar opposites politically, but have jointly altered dynamics of this year’s California elections. Late last week, Ose, who represented a suburban Sacramento district for several terms, declared that he will run for governor. “Simply put, I’m running to rebuild the California dream.” Ose told […]

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丹·沃尔特斯

• 1 月 10, 2018

加州之声

Viewpoints from across California