Dan Walters

Decades ago, a clever person – precisely who is somewhat obscure – quipped that the California lieutenant governor’s job is to wake up in the morning, check the newspapers to be sure the governor is still alive and then find a service club to address for a free lunch. That’s not exactly accurate, but it […]

The Capitol’s struggles over big issues such as housing and water get a lot of public and media attention, but the building’s bread-and-butter, so to speak, are hundreds of bills that would benefit some interest group, often to the disadvantage of a rival group. That’s especially true of the legislative agendas of four such factions […]

Will the second time be the charm for Bakersfield Congressman Kevin McCarthy? The three years ago, McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives failed due to opposition from a conservative House bloc, calling itself the Freedom Caucus, that saw him as too centrist. McCarthy continued in the No. 2 leadership position […]

The long-distance spitting match between President Donald Trump’s Republican administration in Washington and California’s Democratic politicians in Sacramento over just about everything is either high drama or low comedy. The two sides are clearly looking for opportunities to do battle in the media and in the courts, often over the most innocuous ministerial issues. Each […]

There was a bit of good news for California in the federal government’s latest round of academic test results: it’s one of seven states that registered four-point gains in reading comprehension among eighth-graders. But that positive morsel in the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing of fourth- and eighth-graders released this week was […]

Reality may finally be catching up with the vision – or pipedream – of a 200-mile-per-hour train connecting California’s northern and southern regions. A few weeks ago, the High-Speed Rail Authority released its latest “business plan” that was supposed to tell Californians how the brief stretch of track now being constructed in the San Joaquin […]

Eight weeks out, the June 5 primary election’s biggest uncertainty is whether Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have an unobstructed pathway to becoming California’s next governor or will have to fight for it. All candidates, regardless of party, will appear on the ballot and the top two vote-getters will advance to the November election. Democrat […]

The first thing to remember about precipitation in California is that it’s unpredictable, as the past several winters have once again shown us. Several years of severe drought ended in the 2016-17 winter with near-record rain and snow storms that filled the state’s badly depleted reservoirs. The 2017-18 “water year,” as hydrologists call it, began […]

When governments seek permission to borrow money through bonds, telling voters how much and for how long taxes will be increased to repay those loans is just common sense. In fact, the Legislature last year passed such a law, requiring bond measures or taxes proposed by local governments or school districts to state “the amount […]

As the capital of the nation’s most complex and populous state, Sacramento is no stranger to protest marches and other forms of political expression. However, the city has never experienced anything as emotionally powerful as the almost daily marches and rallies to condemn the city police shooting death of 22-year-old Stephon Clark in the backyard […]