Dan Walters

On paper, California has some of the nation’s best open records laws, the latest of which allows access to previously secret information about police misconduct. However, passing a sunshine law is one thing, while applying it may be entirely different. That’s currently being demonstrated vis-à-vis the aforementioned law granting access to police misconduct records. The […]

Recent weeks have seen a debate of sorts about the image and reality of contemporary California. Is it, as Gov. Gavin Newsom contends, a nation-state proving that economic prosperity, multiculturism and social progress can advance together? “California is what America is going to look like,” he told a television interviewer. “California is America’s coming attraction.” […]

Recent weeks have seen a debate of sorts about the image and reality of contemporary California. Is it, as Gov. Gavin Newsom contends, a nation-state proving that economic prosperity, multiculturism and social progress can advance together? “California is what America is going to look like,” he told a television interviewer. “California is America’s coming attraction.” […]

The state budget package that Democratic legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom just enacted is sprinkled with billions of dollars in extra goodies for their most important political constituency, labor unions. Take, for example, Senate Bill 90, the budget’s omnibus education measure. It would allocate $3.1 billion to reduce mandatory payments that local school districts would otherwise […]

Every Californian should be aware by now that the state’s housing shortage not only causes personal angst for millions of the state’s residents, but is a key factor in its economic future. The latter was underscored last month in an analysis of the state’s employment picture by Christopher Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics and director […]

For years – many years – journalists and government watchdogs have cataloged an almost unbroken, extremely expensive string of failed attempts to bring information technology into state government operations. Dozens of IT projects have either failed completely or functioned undependably, costing taxpayers countless millions of dollars. The current poster child for faulty IT is “The […]

For decades – close to a century, in fact – America’s educators and politicians have argued furiously over how best to teach children to read, pitting advocates of “phonics” against those of “whole language,” a conflict dubbed “reading wars.” Phonics stresses fundamental instruction in the letters and letter combinations that make up sounds, thus allowing […]

A collection of commentaries by Dan Walters over the past week.

One of the most significant of the many conflicts between California and President Donald Trump is over auto fuel economy standards.

Gov. Gavin Newsom says he has a plan to resolve California's wildfire crisis that threatens the state's utilities. His political standing may hinge on its outcome.