Dan Walters

California, it's now acknowledged, has a glut of lawyers.

Jerry Brown did one of his characteristic political pirouettes Monday.

As he presented his revised 2013-14 budget to the Legislature last week, Gov. Jerry Brown warned against expanding spending beyond his administration's conservative revenue estimates.

Jerry Brown – who made "lower your expectations" a catchphrase of his first governorship – is back in that mode during his second stint, especially on spending.

When voters passed Proposition 30 last year, they unwittingly accelerated one of the most perilous trends in California governmental finance – an ever-increasing reliance on income taxes from rich people to finance schools and myriad other state and local services.

Twenty-five years ago, California voters approved – albeit very narrowly – the education community's ballot measure that engraved a complex school finance structure into the state constitution.

As an 18th-century frontier village, it was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula, or in English, Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion.

Gov. Jerry Brown's ambitious plan to overhaul how California schools are financed may be loved to death.

There's absolutely nothing wrong, per se, with incurring debt, whether it's by families, businesses or governments. A functional credit market is absolutely vital to a modern economy.

Crime dominated California's political landscape during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s before giving way to other preoccupations.

State legislators often conduct their windiest floor debates over nonbinding "resolutions" commending this or that, condemning this or that, or beseeching Congress to do this or that.

There's nothing ambiguous about Article IV, Section 8a of the California Constitution:

One of the questions that Capitol veterans often field from those newer to the political arena is whether today's Jerry Brown is markedly different from what he was during his first governorship three-plus decades ago.

Reader beware: We're about to delve into numbers – big, abstract numbers, but immensely important numbers as well.

A given number of Californians with a given amount of income will spend a given amount on groceries – and with 38 million residents, the state's grocery business is not only huge, over $100 billion a year, but hugely competitive.

Earlier this week, Gov. Jerry Brown's point man on the highly controversial proposal to bore tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta found himself in political hot water.

Senate Bills 491, 492 and 493 won approval of a Senate committee Monday and we should all be afraid – very afraid – because once again, state legislators are voting on "scope of practice."

Twenty years ago, as California struggled to emerge from what was then the worst recession since the Great Depression, then-Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature enacted a tax break to spur capital investment in job-creating small businesses.

David Crane, a businessman who advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on financial matters – particularly long-term public pension deficits – recently wrote an I-told-you-so piece for the Bloomberg news service about the State Teachers Retirement System.

Jerry Brown spent the first two years of his second governorship dealing with a chronic budget crisis and finally persuaded voters to raise sales and income taxes to narrow the budget gap.

Antonio Villaraigosa worked for Los Angeles' teachers union for eight years before embarking on a political career that took him to the Legislature, to the speakership of the state Assembly and then, eight years ago, to the Los Angeles mayor's office.

The California Legislature rarely – if ever – concerns itself with long-range, big-picture social and economic trends and their relationship to current decision-making.

One committee of one legislative house recently did something rarely seen in the California Capitol. It made a rational decision about electricity.

A fire had ravaged a nut-processing plant the night before, so as the one-man Stockton bureau of the Sacramento Union, I was focused that chilly November 1973 morning on chasing down the details.

Eight years ago, the California Legislature and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made what may have been a gigantic mistake by allowing public employee pension funds to drop a curtain of secrecy over their dealings with hedge funds, private equity funds and other "alternative investments."

A couple of years into Jerry Brown's first governorship Dow Chemical Co. abandoned plans to build a $500 million petrochemical plant, citing regulatory red tape.

It's a familiar refrain in the state Capitol: Legislation to regulate a major industry surfaces, and industry emissaries warn that it could drive production and its jobs to another state.

In the world of high-stakes poker, one continuous – and private – game in a luxurious Las Vegas hotel reigns supreme.

Six years ago, yours truly wrote a column about a proposed law school at the University of California's Irvine campus, suggesting that it was more about academic ego and Orange County boosterism than a shortage of lawyers.

Dan Schnur came to Sacramento a couple of decades ago as a media spokesman for then-Gov. Pete Wilson.

At first blush, federal bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein appeared to give Stockton and its legal ally, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, a major victory this week.

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.