Every day — indeed, every minute of every day — California’s officialdom makes decisions in the name of governance that are mostly predictable and not noteworthy.

Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

Occasionally, however, their conclusions are interesting, even mind-boggling. Several popped up recently that merit attention, in no particular order:

Vance Bashing

There is absolutely no doubt that Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will capture California’s trove of presidential electoral votes this year. California hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, and its voters revile their Republican foe, former President Donald Trump.

So why is California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis starring in a new television ad, airing only in California, that bashes Trump’s vice presidential choice, Sen. J.D. Vance, and urges voters to support the Harris-Walz team?

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Simply put, it’s the opening media buy — up to $1 million — for Kounalakis’ 2026 campaign for governor.

The ad is being paid for by one of her campaign funds, Californians for Choice. The fund is mostly supported by a $4 million contribution from Graton Rancheria, an Indian tribe that operates a casino near Santa Rosa and, like all casino-owning tribes, operates under pacts negotiated with governors.

A Deeper Hole

The Oakland A’s baseball team is moving to Las Vegas, which, among other things, means the city’s baseball/football stadium, the Coliseum, no longer has a major sports team. The city has reached a deal to sell its half ownership in the stadium, and the A’s will sell the other half.

That makes perfect sense, but what Oakland intends to do with its $100-million-plus from the sale makes no sense. Mayor Sheng Thao and other city officials intend to use the windfall to offset a $155 million city budget deficit, thus easing spending cuts that otherwise would be necessary.

That would violate every principle of prudent governmental money management. One-time revenues should never be used to finance ongoing expenses. It just digs a deeper hole, as state budgets have demonstrated on occasion.

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Lawyerly Lapses

The State Bar of California, which licenses lawyers, periodically releases lists of attorneys who have been disbarred for ethical lapses. The individual case files are especially intriguing official documents.

The agency characterizes the latest list of 40 legal miscreants this way: “The disbarments included attorneys who misappropriated client funds, as well as an attorney convicted of felony battery for stabbing a former partner. Two other attorneys were disbarred after they were found guilty of vehicular manslaughter — in one instance, an attorney driving under the influence crashed his vehicle, and a passenger died; in the other, an attorney fled the scene of a hit-and-run crash without rendering aid for a victim who died.”

No comment required.

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Ticketing a Critic

A local ordinance in San Diego makes it a crime to make a “loud noise” in public or use “noisy, boisterous, vulgar, or indecent language.”

Last year a park ranger charged a local artist, William Dorsett, with violating that law after Dorsett criticized the park ranger while filming the ranger issuing a citation to another artist in the city’s Balboa Park. The other artist uses soap bubbles, and the ranger cited that artist, saying the bubbles endangered the public.

“The freedom to speak without risking arrest is ‘one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation,'”

PRESIDING JUDGE ALBERT HARUTUNIAN, SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY

Dorsett was found guilty of the loud noise charge and fined $150 but appealed. A three-judge Superior Court appellate panel unanimously overturned the conviction and declared the ordinance an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech.

“The freedom to speak without risking arrest is ‘one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation,'” Presiding Judge Albert Harutunian wrote.

That should have been obvious when the law was passed, but officials at all levels often favor political gestures over constitutional rights in their decrees.

About the Author

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 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.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

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