Small donors, big impact: California's grassroots politics push back against bil

It was a typical Tuesday morning at the local café on Main Street. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the air as the regulars gathered to discuss the latest news and gossip. Amidst the chatter, one topic dominated the conversation: the outcome of the California midterm elections. As the patrons sipped their coffee and shared their thoughts, the theme of big money in politics loomed large.

In the hours following the polls closing, tech industry players took to social media to praise Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, for his instrumental role in defeating California's wealth tax ballot measure, Proposition 40. The measure, which aimed to impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires, was defeated by a narrow margin. Simultaneously, an opposition initiative, Proposition 42, which banned any taxation on billionaire wealth, is poised to pass.

Brin, whose net worth is approximately $230 billion, contributed at least $132 million to the opposition campaign, making it the most expensive opposition campaign in California's history. The runner-up was former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who gave more than $48 million. The combined efforts of Silicon Valley's elite raised nearly $425 million to sink the tax, according to campaign finance filings.

Over the last month, the campaign poured those dollars into highly produced ads and mailers that bombarded voters with warnings that the tax was dangerous and would hurt everyday people. The taglines from the campaign read like a laundry list of doomsday scenarios: "Prop 40 is an everyone tax," "Reckless experiment," and "You're next." While supporters of the tax argued that the money would go toward funding the state's healthcare losses from Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, opponents repeatedly sent the message to voters that it would make healthcare funding worse.

The pro-billionaire tax campaign faced an uphill battle, as it had to convince Californians that this specific one-time tax, geared toward healthcare funding, was the right way to address losses from Trump's bill. The idea of zeroing in on billionaires ruffled feathers across the state, with major political figures opposing it, including Governor Gavin Newsom and Governor-elect Xavier Becerra.

In comparison, the pro-Prop 40 camp, sponsored by the union SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), raised just over $31 million. They were outspent nearly 14-fold.

"All lies have a shelf life," said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for the SEIU-UHW. "Billionaire-funded propaganda may mislead voters about the consequences of these cuts today, but as hospitals reduce services, emergency rooms close, and families lose access to care, the truth will become increasingly difficult to hide."

The counties that voted to pass Prop 40 are typically more Democratic and where many of the state's wealthy reside, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other areas around the Bay Area. The counties that overwhelmingly voted against the measure were mostly red, rural, and poor. While many of these counties swung blue in US House races this election, up to 80% of voters there voted no on Prop 40, according to the latest count.

Rob Lalka, a business professor at Tulane University and author of The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power, compared the Prop 40 campaign with Uber and Lyft's ballot measure crusade in 2020, where the companies spent more than $200 million to defeat an initiative over labor rights for drivers. Lalka described the tactics as "misleading propaganda and paying for endorsements."

"The money also seemed astonishing at the time: the amount to influence the outcome, over $200 million, was a massive sum," Lalka said. "Money in politics has only increased in California throughout this decade. That's the context for Prop 40 this election cycle."

The colossal funding of political campaigns has broken records nationwide this midterm cycle, said Francesco Trebbi, a business and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He pointed to Elon Musk dumping $446 million into House and Senate races across the country, but noted that it was ineffective in places such as Texas: Musk's mark, James Talarico, won.

"Maybe it was easier to decouple Prop 40 opposition from President Trump's agenda, so Brin had an easier target to hit," Trebbi said. Still, he added, "We need a lot more data and statistical evidence in order to conclusively finalize this discussion."

Exit polls haven't yet been released for Prop 40, which will give more details on voters' decisions. In the meantime, the SEIU-UHW's Jimenez said that despite the loss, the union and its allies are not giving up on the long game: "If Sacramento fails to protect patients and deliver a real solution that makes billionaires pay their fair share, healthcare workers will pursue every available avenue, up to and including returning to the ballot in 2028 with a billionaire tax."

As the regulars at the local café concluded their discussion, the implications of big money in politics became clear. The outcome of Prop 40 served as a stark reminder that the influence of wealth and power can shape the very fabric of our democracy. It is a reality that will continue to unfold, one that will require a collective effort to address and find a path forward.