(June 26, 2026)
âThe misdirect here is that Newsom is opposing a WEALTH tax on billionaires in his own state and insisting he supports a new national INCOME tax on billionaires. But billionaires make money off non-income sources.â
Archiv: Kalifornien / California
California billionaire tax headed for ballot despite top Democratsâ opposition
The push to put a billionaire tax to a popular vote in blue California has exposed deep divides on the left, even as Democratic politicians across the country rally around calls for the wealthy to pay more. The issue is pitting the populist mood of the public against many Democratsâ fears that the measure will push the ultrawealthy to join a broader exodus from the state and take their tax dollars with them.
Gavin Newsom fails to stop Californiaâs controversial billionaire tax from going to voters
(June 25, 2026)
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West President Dave Regan refused to back down on the billionaire tax.
Gavin Newsom moves to neutralize tax on billionaires
(January 12, 2026)
The conversations, reported here for the first time, have occurred intermittently for months as SEIU-UHWâs ballot initiative targeting billionaires migrated from the backrooms of California politics to the center of a raging debate about Silicon Valley and income inequality, sparking tech titansâ wrath and vows to move out of state.
âWeâve been at this for four months,â Newsom said in an interview with POLITICO, describing an âall-handsâ effort that has included him meeting one-on-one with SEIU-UHWâs leader, Dave Regan.
A compromise does not appear imminent. A union official cast doubt on the possibility of a deal, saying the two sides do not currently have another meeting scheduled and framing a ballot fight as an inevitability.
California Billionaire Tax Act
Our solution: The California Billionaire Tax Act
Weâre calling on Californiaâs billionaires to step up and pay a one-time, emergency 5% tax to prevent the collapse of California healthcare and help fund California public K-14 education and state food assistance programs. This would protect healthcare jobs and ensure working people and families can get the care they need. The tax would be paid only by Californians worth more than $1 billion â which is about 200 people who hold a combined wealth of $2 trillion.
Get the fact sheet: English | Spanish
Visit the campaign website.
Latest on California governor election as public awaits results
Meanwhile, state officials warn that it might take weeks to know the actual outcome. „I would call on all Californians to be patient,“ Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a June 2 news release. At nearly $316 million, it‘s already the most expensive governor‘s race on record and the fifth-most expensive non-presidential race on record for ad spending, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.
If Californiaâs race for governor is a stress test for democracy, itâs failing
Electoral reforms are necessary but insufficient. The deeper problem is not the ballot â it is the collapse of the organized civic life that once connected voters to the institutions that govern them. Rebuilding that infrastructure is not a workaround. It is the most important work we can be doing today, not just for California but for America.
Becerra gains support in latest poll with Steyer and Hilton not far behind
The two candidates who receive the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, will progress to the general election in November.
Marcia Lucas, Oscar-Winning Editor Behind âStar Wars,â Dies at 80
A California native, Lucas (née Griffin) got her start in editing via the Motion Picture Editors Guild apprenticeship program and eventually became the assistant to lauded female film editor Verna Fields (Jaws, Paper Moon). It was while working with Fields that she met her future husband, then a student in the film school at the University of Southern California, who had also been hired to assist Fields.
The Case for Californiaâs Billionaire Wealth Tax
(May 26, 2026)
A California ballot initiative that will be put to voters in November would tax just 5 percent of billionairesâ fortunes over five years. This trailblazing wealth tax would be a small (for the ultrawealthy) but important (for everyone else) step toward raising needed tax revenue and curbing the stateâs runaway inequality.
The billionaire class in California includes roughly 250 households, a mere 0.001 percent of the stateâs families. Yet its wealth now amounts to more than half of Californiaâs entire annual economic output.
This means that if these billionaires spent all of their wealth, they could buy more than half of the goods and services produced in a year in the entire state.
Record-setting outside money pouring into California governorâs race
(May 26, 2026)
âThis is the first time Iâve ever seen IEs [or independent expenditures] have this kind of an impact on a governorâs race,â said veteran GOP strategist Martin Wilson, who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and worked on an outside effort backing San JosĂ© Mayor Matt Mahanâs 2026 bid for governor. âItâs totally unprecedented.â
Nonpartisan primary
A nonpartisan primary, top-two primary,[1] or jungle primary[2] is a primary election in which all candidates for the same elected office run against each other at once, regardless of political party.
Many Dems are stuck: Becerra, Steyer or someone else? Hereâs what to know
(May 24, 2026)
Meanwhile, others not enamored by either candidate might fear throwing away their vote by backing one of the lower-polling Democrats. If I vote with my heart for a lower-polling candidate, the thinking goes, will that risk sending one or two Republicans to the general election?
Join Our Movement – For A Better California
Tony knows that working families across California are facing so many challenges that require our entire state government, working together, to solve.
Growing up in poverty as a Black and Latino kid without his parents, Tony lived the struggles that so many Californians face every day – that‘s why he dedicated his career to fighting for a brighter future for California‘s children.
California gubernatorial candidate Tony Thurmond endorses California Billionaire Tax
(February 20, 2026)
Thurmond, a longtime champion of programs to counter food insecurity, sponsored a state law that currently funds universal school meals for every California student. Today, Thurmond praised the Billionaire Tax for helping children and families when they need it most, by funding food, supporting K-14 public education, and protecting healthcare for all Californians.
âBillionaires have a unique opportunity to save healthcare for Californians, feed hungry families, and reinvest in our public schools,â Thurmond said. âGrowing up in poverty, having access to healthcare and food aid kept me and my brother alive, and public education offered us a ladder to the middle class. At a time of unprecedented wealth and income inequality, now is the time to strengthen that ladder for the next generation, not pull it up behind us.â
Tax billionaires. Stop the healthcare collapse.
How it Works
Paid only by Californians worth more than $1 billionâabout 200 people who together hold $2 trillion in wealth, most of which will never be taxed in their lifetimes due to loopholes in state and federal tax laws.
Raises about $100 billion to replace lost federal dollars and protect essential services. Directs 90% of funds to healthcare and 10% to public K-14 education and state food assistance programs.
No new taxes on the middle class, small businesses, or homeowners.
What it does for Californians
Keeps hospital ERs, clinics, nursing homes, and home care open and staffed in every community.
Stabilizes premiums and coverage, so families can see a doctor when they need one.
Protects healthcare jobs and the middle-class economy they support.
Funds public K-14 education to keep classrooms staffed, protect programs, and ensure every child gets a quality education.
Funds state food assistance programs to keep millions of Californians from losing access to food and support school nutrition programs.
What we want is simple
Protect our fragile healthcare system from collapse so our families can get the care we need.
Billionaires doing their part to support California and contribute to the social safety nets and public infrastructure that enabled their wealth accumulation.
A state with a strong middle class where everyone can thrive.
California Billionaire Tax Act
California Billionaire Tax Act
A statewide ballot initiative to enact an emergency tax on billionaires to save Californiaâs healthcare system from collapse
Massive cuts to federal healthcare funding are driving California towards a healthcare collapse. The federal funding cuts will strip roughly $100 billion from California healthcare over the next five years, leading to:
Short-staffed shifts: Skeleton crews left on the front lines as 145,000 healthcare jobs disappear
Higher costs and lost coverage: Insurance premiums go up for everyone, and millions of Californians lose coverage altogether.
Facility closures and reduced services: Hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and home care will be forced to reduce services or close down.
Our solution: The California Billionaire Tax Act
Should billionaires pay more? California unions want voters to decide
(October 24, 2025)
The proposed initiative would tax the 2025 net worth of billionaires residing in California, allowing them to pay off the obligation over five years. The revenue would go into a special fund with 90% reserved for health care spending and 10% reserved for K-12 education spending.
It needs 874,641 signatures to be placed before voters on the 2026 ballot, a number that the groups are confident they can reach. Getting voters to ultimately approve the tax, however, could be a hard sell.
Gavin Newsom moves to neutralize tax on billionaires
(January 12, 2026)
The conversations, reported here for the first time, have occurred intermittently for months as SEIU-UHWâs ballot initiative targeting billionaires migrated from the backrooms of California politics to the center of a raging debate about Silicon Valley and income inequality, sparking tech titansâ wrath and vows to move out of state.
âWeâve been at this for four months,â Newsom said in an interview with POLITICO, describing an âall-handsâ effort that has included him meeting one-on-one with SEIU-UHWâs leader, Dave Regan.
A compromise does not appear imminent. A union official cast doubt on the possibility of a deal, saying the two sides do not currently have another meeting scheduled and framing a ballot fight as an inevitability.
8 arrested during chaos after protest in downtown LA on Friday, LAPD says
Tensions escalated when protesters started clashing with officers outside the federal detention center following the „ICE Out“ protest in downtown Los Angeles on Friday.
Demonstrators were seen throwing trash and debris at federal officers at the loading dock of the building.
Los Angeles police officers were called in to push the angry crowd back and restore order in the area.
Berkeley businesses close, students protest as city joins âICE Outâ national strike
(January 30, 2026)
Cheese Board Collective, Nabolom Bakery and the climbing gym Berkeley Ironworks were among the businesses closed in solidarity with the âno work, no school, no shoppingâ protest.
US judge says Trump must end National Guard deployment in Los Angeles
The U.S. Supreme Court could ultimately decide the issue.
Rare solar storm lights up Northern California skies
A surge in solar activity fueled the vibrant display as the sun reached the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, a period marked by a sharp increase in sunspots and geomagnetic storms.
Around 2019â2020, the sun was at its quietest point; however, with more frequent bursts of solar wind erupting from those sunspots, Earth is now experiencing more substantial and more frequent auroral events.
Judge halts National Guard deployment to Portland from any state to perform federal duties
âThe court recognized what weâve said all along: there is no rebellion, no invasion, and no justification for militarizing our communities,“ Rayfield said in response to the ruling. „The President cannot keep playing whack-a-mole with different statesâ Guard units to get around court orders and the rule of law.â
Illinois files a lawsuit to block Trump deploying the National Guard, joining Oregon
Oregon and Portland went back to the court â this time with California as an additional party to the lawsuit â and asked U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut for a new temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from sending the California National Guard to Oregon.
In her ruling, Immergut barred any National Guard members from being relocated from any state for service in Oregon. One day earlier, she had temporarily blocked the Trump administration from federalizing the Oregon National Guard.
Newsom joins Oregonâs suit after Trump sends California National Guard to Oregon
(October 5, 2025)
President Donald Trump deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland after a federal judge blocked the presidentâs call-up of Oregonâs National Guard, a workaround that has already drawn a new round of legal challenges.
Late Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom joined Oregon leadersâ pending lawsuit, asking Portland-based U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut to block Trumpâs effort to sidestep her initial ruling by deploying California troops.
Appeals court blocks Trump‘s use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans
The ruling barred the use of the act in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, which fall under the Fifth Circuit‘s purview. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department will almost certainly appeal to the wider appeals court or the Supreme Court.
Trump deployment of military troops to Los Angeles was illegal, judge rules in blistering opinion
Experts say the ensuing judicial dust-up it will clarify precedent in a murky corner of the law. But some warn it could also unearth a road map for future deployments in cities across the U.S.
âIf Breyer sides with Newsom and the 9th Circuit sides with Trump, we now have a playbook to use the National Guard and maybe the military around the country,â said Mark P. Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University and one of the countryâs foremost experts on the law at the heart of the case.
âHeâd have a ruling from the most liberal circuit in America giving the legal go-ahead for this deployment,â Nevitt said. âThat would make bad law for the country.â
Donald Trump threatens to arrest NYC mayoral Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani
(July 1, 2025)
Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani if as mayor he follows through on pledges not to assist federal officials enforcing immigration laws.
âWell then, weâll have to arrest him,â Trump told reporters on July 1 while visiting a detention center in Florida. Trump said that he would âbe watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.â
Trump also said „a lot of people are saying he‘s here illegally,“ which is false. Mamdani is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Uganda, who immigrated to the United States with his parents â film director Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani â at the age of seven.
California hopes law from bloody era of U.S. history can rein in Trumpâs use of troops
(Today)
Department of Justice has argued Posse Comitatus does not apply to the militaryâs current actions in Southern California â and even if it did, the soldiers deployed there havenât violated the law. It also claimed the 9th Circuit decision endorsing Trumpâs authority to call up troops rendered the Posse Comitatus issue moot.
Some experts feel Californiaâs case is strong.
âYou literally have military roaming the streets of Los Angeles with civilian law enforcement,â said Shilpi Agarwal, legal director of the ACLU of Northern California, âThatâs exactly what the [act] is designed to prevent.â
But Nevitt was more doubtful. Even if Breyer ultimately rules that Trumpâs troops are violating the law and grants the injunction California is seeking, the 9th Circuit will almost certainly strike it down, he said.
âItâs going to be an uphill battle,â the attorney said. âAnd if they find a way to get to the Supreme Court, I see the Supreme Court siding with Trump as well.â
Trumpâs case for sending troops to help ICE involves precedent from Fugitive Slave Act
(June 14, 2025)
On the streets of Los Angeles, protesters will continue to be met with platoons of armed soldiers. State and local officials remain in open conflict with the president. And in the courts, Trump administration lawyers are digging deep into case law in search of archaic statutes that can be cited to justify the ongoing federal crackdown â including constitutional maneuvers invented to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Trump Will Go To Supreme Court If Newsom Wins Fight Over LA Troops Deployment Again; Appeals Court Considers Temporary Restraining Order
Thousands of heavily armed Guard troops, as well as 700 U.S. Marines have been deployed in the cityâs downtown core for over a week in response to protests over ongoing ICE raids and abductions of the undocumented (and in some cases, the documented).
Trump administration activates 2,000 additional military troops to Los Angeles
Governor Newsom‘s office quickly condemned the announcement, saying the new activation is the second set of 2,000 federalized National Guard members under Trump‘s June 9 order.
âThis is clean up from the Pentagon. This isnât a new deployment â itâs the same group of soldiers who have been diverted from critical wildfire work and work at the border, now twiddling their thumbs for Donald Trumpâs political theater, the statement from the governor‘s office said.
Alex Padilla confrontation in LA shocks senators
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it âsickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States Senator.â Padillaâs California colleague Adam Schiff called for an immediate investigation.
Several other Democrats were dropping the word âfascismâ in conversations as they made their way out of the Capitol.
California senator Alex Padilla forcibly removed from Kristi Noem LA press conference
Security guards wrestled Padilla out of the conference room as he explained he was a senator and wanted to ask the homeland security secretary a question.
Speaking to reporters after the incident, Padilla said: ‚If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what theyâre doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country‘
Sen. Alex Padilla handcuffed by federal agents at immigration press conference
About five minutes into a press conference at the Westwood federal building, Noem told the media that the Trump administration planned to âliberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that the governor and the mayor have placed on this country.â
Padilla, who was standing near a wall on one side of the room, then tried to interrupt Noem to ask a question, video footage shows. Cameras turned toward him as two Secret Service agents tried to push him backward. âSir, sir, hands up,â one said.
Troops in LA can detain individuals, military official says, as protests spread across US
In addition to protecting government buildings and personnel, the Pentagon has said the troops will safeguard Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during raids.
ICE posted photos online on Tuesday of National Guard troops standing guard with weapons in hand as ICE officers handcuffed apparent migrants against the side of a car in Los Angeles.
An 1878 law, the Posse Comitatus Act, generally forbids the U.S. military, including the National Guard, from taking part in civilian law enforcement.
National Guard protecting law enforcement, DHS says as photos appear to show them at ICE operations
Images shared by ICE on X show authorities arresting individuals, as troops stand by, appearing to guard the area around the operation â in other words, serving as a security perimeter. The caption read: âPhotos from todayâs ICE Los Angeles immigration enforcement operation.â
Former senior ICE officials who spoke to CNN couldnât recall any time the National Guard had been involved in an ICE interior operation.
âEven if lawful, however, the idea of the National Guard supplementing ICE officers on interior enforcement is almost certainly a first,â John Sandweg, former acting ICE director during the Obama administration, said.