Articles by Dan Walters

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Write it! Email it to hoa@ivn.us California’s early 20th century reformers sought to thwart an obviously corrupt political system that benefited entrenched interests and ignored the larger public. Their reforms included ways for voters to bypass the system through direct ballot box action — the initiative, the recall and the referendum. The recall — forcing elected officials to vacate their positions — is the least used but pops up occasio...

IVN San Diego Editor's Note: This Supreme Court ruling could have a big effect on San Diego. A proposed hotel tax increase came just short of winning a two-thirds vote in March. Supporters will likely seek a court ruling on the measure. The following is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Email it to hoa@ivn.us. In a roundabout, passive way, the California Supreme Court last week handed a big victory to the advocates of higher taxes. Without comment, the justices declined to take up...

Over the last few decades, Californians have seen crime spike upwards to crisis levels and then decline just as sharply. Their attitudes about crime have been just as volatile, translating into ever-changing waves of policy. When crime rates were rising in the 1970s and 1980s, it became the state’s No. 1 political issue. Republicans used it to win elections and Democrats responded with a slew of anti-crime bills, many of them signed by Jerry Brown during his first governorship, that created ne...

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - With voting already underway and trailing in the polls, Kevin de León desperately needed to score big in Wednesday’s one-and-only quasi-debate with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Billed as a “conversation” by the Public Policy Institute of California, the event was carried live only on the Internet in the middle of a weekday, and so would be viewed by only a tiny fraction of the California electorate. Therefore, de León, a state senator from Los Angeles, needed to make som...

Sacramento, CA.- Two years ago, nearly two-thirds of California voters supported a ballot measure to crack down on legislative trickery. For decades, state lawmakers had dodged the public by secretly drafting important bills and then quickly jamming them through both legislative houses. They became known as “mushroom bills” because they sprouted in the dark of night. Proposition 54, backed by a wide array of civic groups and with $10.7 million in campaign financing from wealthy Stanford Univer...

The California Energy Commission, more or less on the fly, has decreed that beginning in 2020 all new single-family homes and low-rise multi-family residential projects must be built with rooftop solar panels. Although they would add perhaps $10,000 to the cost of a new home, the commission insists that solar arrays would pay for themselves in lower electric power bills while helping the state meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. All good? Not necessarily. Energy Experts Critical of Prog...