Fight Over the California Wealth Tax Shapes Up

The details of the battle for and against the California wealth tax are starting to take shape. On one side is the SEIU, a progressive union that is acting as foot-soldiers for the wealth tax which was written by economists at Berkeley and elsewhere. The SEIU’s first goal is to get the measure on the ballot. To do that they need to gather roughly 900,000 signatures by April. They are getting direct support from Sen. Bernie Sanders who is flying into California to make the pitch for the tax.

Bernie Sanders will be in Los Angeles campaigning Wednesday for the tax proposal that has the Silicon Valley in an uproar, with tech titans are threatening to leave the state…

Sanders is planning a late afternoon rally near downtown, and in the past he has turned out overflow crowds in the heavily Democratic city. The Vermont senator, a democratic socialist, is popular in California — he won the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in the state in a runaway. He’s been railing for decades against what he characterizes as wealthy elites and the growing gap between rich and poor.

Sanders has been promoting his trip to California on his social media accounts.

While U.S. billionaires became $1.5 trillion richer last year, the average worker in America has just $955 in retirement savings & 21% of seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year.

That’s why I’ll be in LA this week fighting for a wealth tax on billionaires.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 15, 2026

He’s speaking today and then again Friday with Rep. Ro Khanna who also supports the wealth tax.

Never before have so few Oligarchs held so much power over our economy, political life and media. Now they’re investing trillions in AI and robotics which could devastate the working class.

I’ll be in California this week discussing these issues. Please join me at our events. pic.twitter.com/bHbbjiVDcL

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 16, 2026

As an aside, whoever designed that poster above completely ripped off the cover of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album from 1966. They even imitated the Capitol Records logo.

16 May 1966, The Beach Boys released “Pet Sounds”. pic.twitter.com/jIQ9QuZUKB

— hold.btc (@BoredWeb3) May 16, 2019

Anyway, Bernie will be metaphorically feeding the goats in California with the socialism they love. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom continues to oppose this.

“The issues that are really going to be motivating Democrats this year, affordability and the cost of health care and cuts to schools, none of these would be fixed by this proposal. If fact, they would be made worse,” said Brian Brokaw, a longtime Newsom adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax.

Newsom will be making his stance known via ads that will start appearing this week.

A group tied to Mr. Newsom is kicking off its opposition drive this week by targeting social media ads at Democratic activists and other party insiders.

Some of the ads will feature Mr. Newsom, who has said the tax would harm innovation in the state and drive away wealthy residents whose income taxes pay for education and health care. The ads will also feature several candidates seeking to replace him as governor next year, Democrats and Republicans alike, along with Mayor Daniel Lurie of San Francisco, a moderate Democrat and a wealthy heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

Finally, the billionaires who’ve already fled California area also investing in efforts to prevent the ballot measure from succeeding. Sergei Brin has put money behind three alternative ballot measures which are also collecting signatures to get on the ballot.

A multi-pronged campaign to undercut the proposed one-time, 5 percent levy took a significant step forward Tuesday, when rival ballot initiatives rolled out veteran staffers and secured support from a ballot committee bankrolled by some of California’s wealthiest residents.

The trio of ballot measures are designed to undercut the billionaire’s tax, such as by invalidating new taxes that apply retroactively or do not adhere to California laws limiting spending or reserving money for schools — prohibitions that would apply to the wealth tax.

In an indication of their resources and seriousness, they’ve all hired seasoned campaign staffers, and : two of the campaigns are already paying $12 per signature — a significant sum in California’s ballot wars — as they dash toward an April deadline to collect signatures.

Under California law, if two ballot measures pass which conflict in any way, only the one with the highest number of votes is enacted. These three alternative measures all conflict with the wealth tax in different ways, which means the wealth tax not only has to get on the ballot but it also has to outperform these rivals if they also raise enough signatures. 

Also, by raising the price paid per signature, the unions are forced to match that price ($12 per signature) to avoid being left behind. But there’s no guarantee the unions have enough money to pay the $12 per signature for 900,000 signatures. At a minimum, it substantially raises the cost of getting this on the ballot and limits their ability to spend that money on ads or other efforts.

So the fight is really kicking into another gear this week with Sanders and Newsom at the forefront and Sergey Brin with a backup plan to sink this. Reading the comments on this story, I get the impression Sanders supporters are pretty eager to support this. Also, it’s clear a lot of people don’t know what this tax actually is or how it works. They just know that taxing billionaires is good and billionaires are bad.

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