In summary

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

Maybe there’s a U.S. Senate race after all

A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Dianne Feinstein and challenger Kevin de Leon, both Democrats, is tightening.

Brown OKs one good education bill, vetoes another

Gov. Jerry Brown had two opportunities to improve educational outcomes. He embraced one, a bill to extend the ability of some community colleges to award four year degrees, but vetoed another, which would have protected sleep-deprived adolescents from having to attend early classes.

The high cost of a zero-emission California

Reaching Gov. Jerry Brown’s goal of a carbon-neutral California would require massive expenditures on the electrical grid and for zero-emission vehicles.

California an economic model? Not quite

Those who boast of California’s economic prosperity ignore the 16 million Californians who are living in poverty or near-poverty.

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Dan Walters has been a journalist for more than 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times...