'We Intend to Win': California Billionaire Tax Officially Certified for November Ballot

Organizers said late Thursday that a proposed one-time wealth tax on California billionaires has been certified to appear on state ballots in November, advancing despite efforts by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and billionaire-funded groups to tank the measure ahead of the June 25 deadline.

"Today we’re making it clear that we aren’t backing down–the billionaire tax will be on the ballot this November, and we intend to win,” said Debru Carthan, a radiologic technologist and spokesperson for Billionaire Tax Now, the healthcare union-led coalition leading the ballot initiative.

If approved by California voters, the proposal would tax billionaires' wealth at a rate of 5%, raising an estimated $100 billion to shore up the state's healthcare system amid devastating federal cuts to Medicaid. Revenue from the tax would also be used for food aid and education, according to the initiative's text.

Last week, organizers offered to withdraw their proposal if Newsom agreed to push a 2% tax on billionaire wealth in California's Legislature. Newsom, who is widely seen as a 2028 presidential hopeful, rejected the compromise and privately told a major Democratic donor that he was confident the billionaire tax would not appear on California's ballot in November.

Organizers emphasized Thursday that despite Newsom's opposition and fearmongering from billionaires and other opponents, the proposed tax is popular among California voters, who are facing an affordability crisis as the wealthiest see their fortunes soar. From 2023 to 2025, the wealth of California billionaires surged by 144%, according to a recent paper co-authored by leading economists.

"Voters consistently support the billionaire tax by large, double-digit margins, and the growing campaign has brought on thousands of volunteers," organizers said in a statement. "Supporters of the measure submitted over 1.6 million signatures, more than double the number needed to secure a spot on the general election ballot."

To succeed, proponents of the billionaire tax must secure enough votes to pass their initiative while also defeating separate ballot measures that would effectively cancel out the wealth levy. One of the competing initiatives was pushed by a group bankrolled by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat the billionaire tax and who left California in late 2025 to avoid the potential levy.

The competing ballot measures—the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act of 2026 and the Improving Transparency, Effectiveness, and Efficiency in California Government Act of 2026—are titled in ways that could lead some voters to support both the wealth tax and proposals that would counteract it.

Igor Volsky, director of the Tax the Greedy Billionaires campaign, said in a statement that "when billionaires can erase democratic initiatives that threaten their fortunes, they have too much power."

"The fact that the ultra-wealthy and billionaire-backed politicians like Gov. Newsom nearly succeeded in killing it is the single best argument for why we need to tax billionaires in the first place," Volsky added.

US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a vocal supporter of the proposed billionaire wealth tax, said Thursday that "this issue couldn’t be more simple."

"There are 250 billionaires in a state of 40 million people," said Khanna. "What we’re saying is, tax these 250 billionaires so that millions of Californians can have healthcare."