{"id":375878,"date":"2026-06-26T14:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T14:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375878\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T14:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T14:30:14","slug":"a-tax-on-california-billionaires-to-fund-healthcare-is-officially-on-the-ballot-the-press-democrat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375878\/","title":{"rendered":"A tax on California billionaires to fund healthcare is officially on the ballot \u2013 The Press Democrat"},"content":{"rendered":"

An attempt by Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> and his allies to negotiate a deal to keep a proposed union-backed wealth tax<\/a> off the November ballot came up short at the Thursday deadline, setting up an expensive fight in the governor\u2019s final months in office.<\/p>\n

The one-time 5% tax on the state\u2019s billionaires has rocked Sacramento in recent months, sharply dividing Democrats and splintering labor coalitions. The union behind the initiative \u2014 the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West \u2014 says the measure is critical for stemming the budgetary bleeding from recent federal cuts to healthcare.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Sergey Brin confronted Gavin Newsom at a treehouse party \u2014 then launched a political war<\/a><\/p>\n

In the final weeks before the June 25 deadline,\u00a0Newsom\u2019s team was working to broker a deal with SEIU-UHW to keep the tax off the ballot. He ultimately rejected a compromise from the union last week that would have dropped the levy from 5% to 2%. The governor has raised concerns that the tax would drive the state\u2019s wealthiest residents out of California, doing long-term damage to the state\u2019s tax base and stifling innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the governor made clear from the beginning is that he would not entertain any proposal or any compromise that taxed billionaires,\u201d SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan said during a virtual press conference on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

Union Vice President Debru Carthan accused the governor of being in \u201clockstep\u201d with President Donald Trump and billionaires like Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has already poured millions into efforts to defeat the initiative, and said that Newsom \u201chas no plan to fix one of Trump\u2019s deadliest domestic policy blunders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s office would not comment on Carthan\u2019s remarks, but said the governor believes the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. However, Newsom believes the proposed measure as is would put funding for schools, libraries, public safety and reproductive health clinics at risk.<\/p>\n

Multiple opposition groups quickly put out statements vowing to beat the billionaire\u2019s tax after the measure had officially qualified. One of the groups, Golden State Promise, which has major funding from Ripple CEO Chris Larsen, said it has already spent $10 million on ads and voter outreach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are ready to defeat this convoluted nightmare of a measure in November,\u201d Golden State Promise spokesperson Roger Salazar said.<\/p>\n

Several countermeasures aimed at overturning or weakening the billionaire tax have also made the November ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to have more money than God thrown at this thing,\u201d veteran consultant Garry South said of the fight ahead.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An attempt by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to negotiate a deal to keep a proposed union-backed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,400,100,13],"class_list":["post-375878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}