Dan Walters

The California Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have enacted dozens of bills to relieve the state's housing shortage but high development costs suppress construction.

As the battle over speakership of the state Assembly becomes more intense, it resembles a similar intraparty squabble 42 years earlier.

The 2022 session of the California Legislature saw the state move close to the Western European model of extensive public services and benefits.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom insists that he's not running for president but continues to cultivate a national political profile that may indicate otherwise.

California's economy, which contracted into recession during the COVID-19 pandemic and then exploded, may be headed downward again due to national and global economic trends.

For nearly two decades, California's state government has struggled to design and implement a comprehensive financial management system called FI$Cal but although it remains unfinished a new law declares it to be complete.

The California Department of Education is - for no rational reason - refusing to release results of last spring's academic tests, which are likely to be negative.

Pressure is building for another overhaul of workers' compensation, California's multi-billion-dollar system of dealing with job-related illnesses and injuries, but what form it will take is still uncertain.

The closure of California's public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic had a hugely negative impact on children's educations that will reverberate for decades.

Once again, California voters are being asked to raise income taxes on the state's most affluent taxpayers, but this time around the dynamics are different and the outcome less certain.