California Electricity Issues: Engineering or Political

Are the electrical power issues California suffers from an engineering problem, or a political problem?

Maybe a little of both. The problem started as a political problem, and became an engineering problem when we exceeded the limits of the system.
But first, what problems are you asking about? The fires caused outages, or the inverter based electrical problems? Or maybe the power import problems, or all of the above?
Sometimes what people want just does not fit well with the real world. That seems to be the cause of several of these, and too little or too much regulation by governments.

Definitely a mix of both.