California billionaire tax qualifies for ballot, setting stage for expensive fight
A proposal to tax California billionaires’ wealth has qualified to appear on the November ballot, setting the stage for an expensive election fight — or high-stakes negotiations to scrap it before the June 25 deadline.
The measure would levy a 5% tax on billionaire’s wealth and use 90% of the resulting revenues to fund healthcare costs. The measures’ backers, including SEIU United Healthcare Workers West and the Teamsters California, argue that the tax is the only way to backfill deep federal cuts to healthcare signed by President Donald Trump last year.
In an email earlier this month, the Billionaire Tax Now said the tax “is the only way to stop massive federal healthcare funding cuts that will push key parts of the California healthcare system to the brink of collapse, or worse.”
The bill has some high profile supporters, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Freemont.
But critics, Gov. Gavin Newsom, business interests and high-profile billionaires, argue the one-time revenues would drive billionaires out of California, depriving the state of long-term tax revenue. Some labor and progressive groups, including the California Teachers Association and Planned Parenthood, have also come out against the tax over concerns that it doesn’t address their long-term funding needs.
Newsom is reportedly aiming to keep the measure off the ballot by negotiating some kind of compromise with Dave Regan, the hard-charging president of SEIU-UHCW. It’s not clear where those efforts stand.
The potential tax has also galvanized billionaires like Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has poured tens of millions of dollars into ballot measures that would effectively undermine the billionaire tax. Two of those measures have collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot but are awaiting final validation from state election officials.
One of Newsom’s closest advisors, Jim DeBoo, told attendees at a California Chamber of Commerce event that the proposed tax had united groups that are often at odds.
“It’s a unique time in California politics where one person [Regan] has managed to align the business community, the medical community, the billionaire community, all against one entity,” DeBoo said.
The tax is retroactive in the sense that it applies to any billionaire who was a resident of California as of Jan. 1, 2026. Backers of the tax say it will raise round $100 billion, with critics citing far lower figures.
