Dan Walters

The first two budgets that Jerry Brown proposed after returning to the governorship cleaved deeply into California's safety net of health and welfare services serving the aged, disabled and poor.

The bad news is that a dry winter means the Sierra snowpack is only half of its statistical normal as the annual spring runoff begins.

The bad news is that a dry winter means the Sierra snowpack is only half of its statistical normal as the annual spring runoff begins.

During Jerry Brown's first stint as governor three-plus decades ago, a number of books were written about him – some laudatory, some critical and some analytical.

Humorist C. Northcote Parkinson dubbed an observation about organizational conduct the "Law of Triviality."

Ordinarily, a special legislative election in a rural corner of California would not generate much outside interest.

Morally and logically, there's no reason that same-sex couples should be denied the right to marry and thus hold the same privileges and responsibilities of other married couples.

Ostensibly, the trial that opened Monday in a federal courtroom was about whether Stockton is eligible to file for bankruptcy.

Rod Wright may be the most controversial member of the California Legislature – for good reason.

Coincidentally, three otherwise unrelated events last week framed California's somewhat clouded economic situation.

The conviction of five former officials of the small Southern California city of Bell on corruption charges this week is a victory for governmental integrity.

The 2013 session of the California Legislature is nearly four months old, having begun in early December, and lawmakers have done little to earn their salaries and living expense checks.

The agency charged with building the nation's first bullet train system in California took two big steps Monday.

What's in a word? Apparently a lot, when it comes to overhauling the California Environmental Quality Act.

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments is so politically correct it squeaks – fully embracing the anti-greenhouse gas, pro-transit, "sustainable" development policies adopted by the state in recent years with a "blueprint" said to be a model for other California regions.

They held an election in California's largest city this week – more or less.

Facing a looming federal deadline for moving dirt, managers of California's bullet train project are trying to clear away legal and political impediments that threaten to delay the project.

Feuds between rival factions of Latino Democrats could give Republicans an outside chance at picking up one or even two state Senate seats in special elections this year.

Gov. Jerry Brown did another victory lap in Washington late last month, suggesting during a national governors' conference that California had shown the way to resolve the federal government's budget woes by balancing the state budget after years of deficits.

A recent series of statewide polls underscored that when it comes to hot-button social issues such as gay marriage, immigration, marijuana use and abortion, California voters hew to the liberal – or libertarian – side.

The official line from Gov. Jerry Brown's administration and legislative leaders – the party line, in fact – continues to be that a "historic realignment" of criminal justice responsibilities reducing the state prison population is a big success, end of story.

On Monday, the Assembly Transportation Committee held what was supposedly an oversight hearing on the state's nascent bullet train project.

Ordinarily, the resignation of a state senator - particularly one not tinged with scandal - is of no more than passing interest. In fact, two senators had already resigned early this year to take their seats in Congress.

Whenever the governor or the Legislature proposes a change in how California's public schools are financed, someone almost immediately creates a spreadsheet that shows which districts would gain money and which would lose.

Nearly 50 years ago, then-Gov. Pat Brown and the California Legislature took a giant leap of faith with an expansive new health care program for the state's low-income residents that became known as Medi-Cal.

One of the annoying anomalies about government services in California is that while we carry one of the nation's highest state and local tax burdens – over 10 percent of personal income – we consistently rank very low in what those many billions of tax dollars provide.

An old joke goes something like this: A man applies for an accounting job and his would-be employer asks whether he can do double-entry bookkeeping.

Jerry Brown is forever cautioning California residents and politicians about the need to balance the state budget and pay down debt.

Thirty-three years ago, while seeking votes for his second presidential campaign in rural Wisconsin, Jerry Brown was hit with questions about federal milk-price policy, no small matter in a state of self-proclaimed "cheeseheads."

The old argument about whether the chicken or the egg came first has a political counterpart in California:

Los Angeles is the nation's second largest city, but in political terms it's more like a kindergarten sandbox than a grown-up municipality.

California had one of the globe's earliest oil industries and was once more than self-sufficient in gasoline and other petroleum products, but as demand grew and production waned, we became an importer, mostly from Alaska and Southeast Asia.

Unto itself, Texas Gov. Rick Perry's supposed business recruitment trip to California this week is nothing more than a publicity stunt, and a cheap one at that.

A couple of years ago, as many California cities were struggling with budget deficits that eventually sent several of them into bankruptcy court, Fresno appeared to be a shining exception.

Much – probably too much – is being made of the newly minted Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature and the prospects of doing this or that.

So the political telegraph tells us that Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez is on the White House list of potential labor secretaries.

The Legislature hasn't been doing much in the two months since it reconvened – so little, in fact, that legislative leaders are staging policy seminars to show voters that they are really being diligent.

Capitol politicians have a sorry record in handling revenue windfalls, both real and imaginary.

An amusing – or appalling – incident occurred in the Legislature in 1995 involving the state's Education Code, the body of law that purports to manage how 6 million school kids are educated.

When Gov. Jerry Brown demanded that the Legislature alter the state's infinitely complex school finance system to provide more aid to districts with large numbers of poor and/or "English learner" students, he declared it to be a moral imperative.

If demography is destiny, the California Republican Party may be destined to become nothing more than an asterisk in the history books – unless it can alter its hostile relationship with the state's fast-growing Latino population.

Californians have the nation's toughest gun control laws, but also own about 40 million pistols, rifles and shotguns.

Recently, the History cable TV channel aired a documentary series about the late 19th-century and early 20th-century tycoons who – spurred by ambition, greed and personal rivalries – made the nation an industrial powerhouse.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System has reported – with no small elation – that it has recouped virtually all of the $95 billion in investment losses it sustained during the global financial crisis.

Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment of the state's penal system is a year old and he claims it's been so successful in reducing prison overcrowding that federal judges should butt out, even though it hasn't reached the mandated level of 137.5 percent of prison design capacity.

Gov. Jerry Brown uttered more than 3,000 words in just under 25 minutes Thursday, telling the Legislature – and 38 million other Californians – that the state is in good shape, getting better every day and can look forward to a bright future.

When members of the California Legislature pass legislation, they are, in effect, writing rules they expect everyone to obey.

During Jerry Brown's first governorship three-plus decades ago, no political issue burned more hotly than transportation, particularly a marked slowdown in highway construction.

Mention "tax reform" to a liberal Democrat, and the talk immediately turns to raising more revenues. Mention it to a conservative Republican, and he or she sees it as a way to cut taxes.