California Voices

Two tax increase measures have reached the floors of the Senate and Assembly. Both threaten to delete Proposition 13’s important taxpayer protections from the California Constitution. Put simply, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1 and Senate Constitutional Amendment 5 would be taxes on California affordability.

Senate Bill 772 by Sen. Steven Bradford, a Gardena Democrat, would force publicly-owned utilities and their ratepayers to pay for pumped hydropower storage, even if the utilities and their ratepayers don’t need it and would receive no benefit from it.

Donald Trump closes the book by California's "Shrimpgate" scandal by pardoning former Assemblyman Pat Nolan.

In 2016, fewer than 6% of California adolescents reported trying cigarettes, down from 19% in 2003. Why on earth did legislators feel the need to intervene in such a hugely positive youth trend? For no apparent reason, they did. The results aren't pretty.

"Fungibility," as applied to politics, means there's no free lunch despite politicians' efforts to persuade us otherwise.

Michael J. Scippa, Alcohol Justice, Tiburon It would be more objective if all publications would include the public health perspective when covering the issue of extending last call at bars. Senate Bill 58 is Sen. Scott Wiener’s relentlessly dangerous 4 a.m. bar bill. It marks the third consecutive year in which he has attempted to […]

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

Some California legislators are considering a sales tax on services. A services tax won't reduce California's budget volatility and would worsen the state's affordability crisis. With record budget surpluses, talk of new taxes should be political malpractice.

Ralph W. Guida IV, president of American Council of Engineering Companies-California, Yorba Linda, and Benjamin I. Kasdan, president of American Institute of Architects-California Council, Santa Ana CALmatters’ columnist Dan Walters severely misconstrues Assembly Bill 626. Recent ambiguous court rulings have upended decades of local contracting practice and created chaos for local agencies. The result is […]

Smart speakers and tech companies have the capability of recording your conversations, even when you may think the device is turned off. Privacy in the home is at risk as this exciting technology proliferates.