Billionaires and unions clash as ballot withdrawal deadline draws near
It’s a crucial time for backers and critics of this year’s statewide ballot measures, including a proposed billionaire wealth tax, a voter ID initiative and a plan to overhaul a major environmental law. So far, 12 measures are currently set to appear on voters’ November ballot with four more pending.
But those numbers are likely to change.
Major unions and business interests often sponsor competing measures, only to negotiate 11th-hour agreements to yank their proposals from ever appearing in front of voters. The deadline for the groups to withdraw measures is June 25.
The negotiations typically happen out of public view and frequently involve the governor’s office. An agreement can spare those special interests multi-million dollar fights to win over voters.
Last week, Uber and the Consumer Attorneys of California reached a deal that will keep two competing measures off the ballot. Some of the groups involved in a measure related to capping local property taxes have reached an agreement to keep it off of the ballot, although one of the measure’s backers is reportedly refusing to remove it.
Other deals may be negotiated in the coming days. Here’s where things stand.
Measures that have qualified for the ballot
The Billionaire Tax Act would create a one-time 5% tax on California residents with assets over $1 billion, steering 90% of the revenue toward healthcare. Supporters say that without the tax, hospitals and clinics will be forced to make major cuts to contend with the Republican-backed H.R. 1 bill that passed in Congress last year.
The measure’s main backer is the SEIU United Health Workers West, whose president, Dave Regan, has a long track record of using ballot measures as a cudgel to win concessions from labor adversaries. The measure has sparked fierce blowback from billionaires like Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has spent $82 million on ballot efforts in opposition of the billionaire tax, including two counter-measures that include provisions that would block the tax from taking effect. Gov. Gavin Newsom is also a critic, and has helped organize opposition from allies like the California Teacher’s Association. The coalition behind the measure signed an open letter to Newsom last week saying they were open to a smaller, 2% tax “for the good of the state.”
The same union is backing two other measures: the Healthcare Executive Compensation Act, which would cap healthcare executive pay at $450,000, and the Clinic Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which requires 90% of total health clinic revenue to be spent on patient services.
Regan himself is the target of another measure sponsored by one of his longtime adversaries, the California Hospital Association. That initiative, the Health Care Union Transparency, Accountability & Union Member Right to Vote Act, would limit healthcare unions’ spending on ballot measures and dictate that any union dues spent on state and local ballot measures be disclosed annually to union members.
The California Voter ID Initiative would require voter ID verification for both in person and mail-in voting. Voters who cast ballots by mail would need to provide the last four digits of a unique number on their ID, like a driver’s license number. Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, one of the measure’s sponsors, claimed in an interview that California does not maintain an updated voter roll and sends ballots to people who have left the state, which he said could be enough to sway election results. The ACLU of Northern California, which opposes the measure, has dubbed these types of voter ID initiatives “modern-day poll taxes,” and an effort to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
The Building an Affordable California Act aims to strip down environmental regulations and remove the “bureaucratic red tape” that prevents broadly defined public projects from being built under the California Environmental Quality Act. Backers like the California Chamber of Commerce say those changes would allow projects to be built faster, cheaper and more frequently. Environmental groups worry that limiting project oversight through CEQA would have damaging environmental impacts. The initiative’s funders include the Chamber, PG&E, and Brin.
The Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13 would require a two-thirds majority for local ballot measures seeking to pass local special taxes. It would also eliminate the so-called Los Angeles Mansion Tax, which 58% of LA voters approved in 2022, that levies a tax beginning at four percent on real estate sales over $5 million. The state ballot measure’s sponsor, longtime anti-tax advocate Jon Coupal, says that transfer taxes are “equity theft” and slow development and make building state housing harder. Critics of the ballot initiative say that Measure ULA provides a crucial tax funnel that facilitates affordable housing development and funding for social services. Local governments also warn the measure could reduce local revenues by $2 to $3 billion annually, citing research from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The California Middle-Class Homeownership and Family Home Construction Act of 2026 would establish a program to provide secondary mortgage loans for up to 17% of the purchase price of newly constructed single-family homes with a down payment as low as 3%. It is designed for California residents earning up to 200% of their area’s median income and would be funded by $25 billion in revenue bonds, which would be paid back using mortgage payments. The measure is sponsored by the California Association of Realtors.
The California Children’s Education and Health Care Protection Act of 2026 would indefinitely extend an existing tax on couples who make above $680,000 and individuals who make above $340,000 that’s currently set to expire in 2030. The revenues would continue to go to fund schools and community colleges. Backers of the tax, including the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, say allowing the tax to expire would cause an immediate reduction of $10 billion in annual funding for California public schools and community colleges. The tax extension has so far not faced the same resistance as the billionaire wealth tax.
Ballot measures from the Legislature
Several measures that could appear on the ballot came out of the Legislature and the governor’s office, rather than from signature-gathering efforts.
On Monday, Newsom and state lawmakers announced a deal to place an $11 billion housing bond measure on voters’ ballots. The plan still requires sign-off from two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers. If passed by the Legislature and voters in November, it would set aside $10 billion to help fund rental housing and homeownership programs and another $1.25 billion would specifically target housing for military veterans.
Another measure addresses the ballot initiative process itself. Currently, measures need a simple majority of votes to take effect. There’s been efforts in the past to increase this threshold. This measure seeks to hold those ballot measures to their own standard. For example, if a measure sought to impose a two-thirds majority for all future initiatives, it too, would have to pass by a two-thirds majority to take effect. It would also allow local governing bodies to hold nonbinding advisory votes on policy questions as a way to gauge public opinion.
A third measure targets recall elections. Currently, recall elections involve two questions: whether a politician should be recalled from office, and who should replace them. This ballot measure would eliminate the second portion of recall elections. Instead, the initiative says that if the recall election succeeds, the office “will remain vacant until it is filled in accordance with the Constitution and statute.” If the governor is recalled, for example, he or she would be replaced by the lieutenant governor. The exception is if the recall happens within the governor’s first two years in office, ahead of the nomination period for another statewide election; in that scenario, there would be a special election to choose a new governor.
Finally, there is a measure that would unwind the current ban on public financing of political campaigns. Candidates who agree to the ban would have to agree to expenditure limits and couldn’t use the money for purposes like paying legal fees. Backers like the League of Women Voters say the measure will help counter the influence of special interest funding in elections.
Measures pending verification from the secretary of state’s office
Two ballot initiatives pending verification are backed by billionaire critics of the wealth tax; Brin, the Google co-founder, is their biggest financial backer. One would bar new taxes on personal property, or taxes that apply retroactively. Those provisions would void the proposed billionaire tax, which would apply to billionaires who were California residents as of Jan. 1. The other mandates a more stringent process for auditing state programs funded by new taxes. It, too, contains poison pill provisions designed to gut the proposed wealth tax.
Another proposal would extend a no-interest loan program offered by the University of California to faculty and managers. Under this proposal, support staff who’ve spent at least five years working for the UC system would be eligible for no interest, 20% down payment loans. The staff would repay the loans when they sold the home, in addition to 20% in any appreciation in the home’s value. The measure prohibits taxpayer funds, tuition or General Funds from funding the loans.
The California Immunology Research and Cures Initiative would authorize $8.4 billion in state bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research. Backers say it would help California maintain a leading position in medical research and could lead to breakthroughs that improve health outcomes and boost the state economy. State legislative analysts say the proposal would cost $500 million annually to repay the bonds, though they say that all or some of those costs could be eliminated if the funded research leads to revenue-generating discoveries.
