President-elect Joe Biden called Wednesday for the restoration of “just simple decency” as a mob incited by his predecessor stormed the U.S. Capitol and delayed Congress from certifying the results of November's election in which Biden won the White House. Biden had planned to deliver a speech focused on how...
US Capitol Breached as Trump Supporters Clash With Police
The U.S. Capitol locked down Wednesday after protesters breached barricades amid violent clashes between President Donald Trump's supporters and Capitol police. Both chambers of Congress abruptly recessed as they were debating the Electoral College vote that gave Joe Biden the presidency. There was confusion in the House chamber as the...
Walters: The Man Who Changed the Capitol
As strange as it may seem now, California’s state Senate was once a bastion of bipartisan — almost nonpartisan — comity. Although Democrats were in the majority, they willingly shared power with Republicans. A bipartisan rules committee gently controlled the flow of legislation and committees were just as likely to...
Ahead of Impeachment Trial, Trump Suggests Not Having It
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says the Senate should simply dismiss the impeachment case against him, an extraordinary suggestion as the House prepares to transmit the charges to the chamber for the historic trial. The Republican president is giving mixed messages ahead of the House's landmark vote that will launch...
State Senate Disrupted By Woman Throwing Red Liquid on Legislators
SACRAMENTO — A woman threw a feminine hygiene device containing "what appeared to be blood" onto the floor of the state Senate Friday, splashing onto lawmakers and forcing them to finish their work in a committee room on the final day of the legislative session. Senators had just finished taking...
Blackface Scandal Spotlights Deeply Embedded Racism in US
When Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam refused to resign last week, he did so in the shadow of a Capitol built by a founding father and a slave owner, in the former seat of the Confederacy still wrestling with what to do about statues that honor those who fought to preserve...
Walters: The High Price We Pay for Low-Rent Housing
Cascade Village sounds like a mountain hamlet, but it’s the name of a somewhat shabby block of 74 low-rent apartments in the southern edge of Sacramento. A few days ago, Sacramento city officials announced that they will float a $25 million bond and loan the proceeds to the 55-year-old complex’s...
Commentary: Legislature, Newsom Have an Ambitious Agenda
The Legislature reconvened this week with Democrats celebrating sweeping election wins that give them immense majorities in both sides of the Capitol and they are intending to use them. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom presided over the state Senate’s opening session, saying, “the world is looking to us.” Newsom will be...
Dan Walters Tells It Like It Is About Sexual Harassment & Hypocritical Cal Legislature
California lawmakers finally relented last week and released records of investigations into sexual harassment involving Capitol members and employees. But CALmatters columnist Dan Walters opines in his Feb. 7 column that the state Legislature's action fell short of what is needed. "It was not a complete capitulation," Walters writes. "Records of...
Dan Walters Tells It Like It Is About Sexual Harassment & Hypocritical Cal Legislature
California lawmakers finally relented last week and released records of investigations into sexual harassment involving Capitol members and employees. But CALmatters columnist Dan Walters opines in his Feb. 7 column that the state Legislature's action fell short of what is needed. "It was not a complete capitulation," Walters writes. "Records of...