San Francisco       Money is flying faster than the accusations back and forth, but the billionaire tax is on the ballot this November in California and a reckoning is coming, one way or another.  As many will recall, this is a one-time tax on California billionaires to fill the gap in state and federal funding for healthcare and education programs.

Predictably, many billionaires are squealing like stuck pigs.  One of the Google guys has dropped a big pile of money in the campaign against the initiative.  Some have moved out of state or promised that they will.  Musk is already gone, but he sees this akin to the reds taking St. Petersburg.

There’s controversy on the other side as well.  The initiative was promoted and funded by the giant health care local based in the Bay Area led by Dave Regan for the last 20 years or so.  United Healthcare West is an affiliate of the equally large Service Employees International Union (UHW/SEIU), long a powerhouse in California, as well.  Regan is a controversial figure to some.  He was originally inserted into the union’s leadership in a bitter trusteeship ousting a longtime staffer Sal Rosselli, who founded another union, that may not have the 120,000 of UHW, but has 10,000 or more now as well.  Recently, part of the campaign against the bill dredged up some staff complaints over the years of mistreatment and misogyny by Regan. The Los Angles Times reported that Regan and UHW have also been left out on the limb by the SEIU California State Council and the international itself, both of which have distanced themselves from the measure.  The bite there is that Gavin Newsom, the popular and powerful governor of the state, has aggressively opposed the measure and managed to split off a lot of labor from teachers and others to oppose.

Regan is not everyone’s cup of tea for sure.  He’s done some of my comrades wrong, but personally and professionally, I’ve always gotten along with Dave and liked him.  When I was on the SEIU board, we were often among the few lonely “no” votes on different measures.  Regardless, this initiative is not about Dave.

Maybe it’s not even about taxes and the revenues that might be gained from them.  Maybe it’s just about billionaires and the gaps between them and us. There are 50 billionaires in Silicon Valley alone and with the AI and data center expenditures, there are more being minted almost daily.  Lose a couple and California will still have plenty. Talking to people around the city, a lot of it seems to be about the way billionaires have operated in California and the world.  The polls still are not buckling under the weight of all the anti-money.  People seem to be relishing a chance to send the billionaires a message.

There will be a lot more distractions, but it’s hard not to enjoy this fight and root for a win at least this time to remind billionaires that they live in our world still, rather than their belief that all of us simply live in theirs.