Noozhawk republishes news articles and commentaries from CalMatters on state and local policy issues that affect Santa Barbara County readers.

Last year, after decades of often bitter debate, California took an important step toward raising the abysmal levels of ...

Noozhawk republishes news articles and commentaries from CalMatters on state and local policy issues that affect Santa Barbara County readers.

Newsom has so far shunned new taxes to close the gap, even trying to sidetrack a tax on the assets of billionaires that may ...

Dan Walters, a CalMatters columnist who has been covering California politics since 1975, speaks at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara on Thursday night about the biggest challenges facing the state, ...

Two ads among the many aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast didn’t sell beer, cars, fast food or cell phone services; ...

Techies are diving into the gubernatorial campaign because Gov. Newsom, who has generally backed Silicon Valley in policy battles … will be gone in a year.’ ...

Obscure charts show how California's spending exploded under Newsom, far outstripping its stagnant population growth, ...

In the four months since the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted a new state budget, revenues — primarily from personal income taxes — have outstripped expectations by several billion dollars.

The Lobero Theatre will be the host of Spotlight, Santa Barbara’s newly envisioned speaker series, that opens with a talk by political columnist Dan Walters, 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 5. Walters is the ...

While the state borrows $5.6 billion from education, districts throughout the state are struggling to balance their own budgets this year.

There’s an old saying that demographics are destiny. What’s happening now in California underscores that truism.