California Voices

Puzzling: While Gov. Jerry Brown and California's Legislature made it harder for a teacher to protect children against gun-wielding criminals, they also reduced potential penalties for gun-wielding criminals.

One factor – perhaps the decisive one – in Dianne Feinstein’s decision to seek another term in the U.S. Senate next year was pressure from party leaders, who feared an expensive and divisive free-for-all were she to retire. Democrats have three dozen Senate seats up next year, will be financially stretched to defend the most […]

Critics, particularly Republicans, often complain that Democrats who control the state Legislature yearn to minutely control or heavily tax any human behavior they don’t like. Democratic legislators often seem eager to justify the criticism by passing pettifogging “nanny” bills. But in doing so, they occasionally engender some kickback—adult supervision of a sort—from governors. As he […]

When Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed Assembly Bill 715 last week, he closed the book on even token legislative efforts to confront California’s epidemic of opioid abuse. Last year, California doctors and dentists wrote 23.7 million prescriptions for opioids, supposedly to relieve their patients’ pain, but overprescription, misuse by patients and/or backchannel diversion of the drugs […]

So California has declared itself to be a sanctuary for those who have entered the nation illegally. “This action protects public safety and ensures hard-working people who contribute to our state are respected,” Gov. Jerry Brown said as he signed a package of bills aimed at protecting at least 2 million undocumented residents from being […]

That gnashing sound you hear are the political gears shifting in response to Dianne Feinstein’s announcement – after months of delay – that she’ll seek another U.S. Senate term next year. “I am running for reelection to the Senate,” Feinstein declared on Twitter Monday morning. “Lots more to do: ending gun violence, combating climate change, […]

California’s never-say-die conservatives reject anyone who strays from their rigid positions on taxes and other issues.

Walters: California has been on a tax binge in recent months, enhancing its status—for better or worse—as one of the nation’s highest-taxing states.

It's amusing that Democrats are outraged about gerrymandering. Republicans are merely doing what Democrats did for many decades, until the GOP turned the tables.

It will be a misdemeanor crime in California to interfere with the state auditor's investigations.