California's billionaire tax is on the ballot this fall — and almost nobody fighting over it is who you'd expect. The state's own nonpartisan analyst won't back the $100 billion revenue number the sponsors are citing. A 1979 law from the same tax revolt that gave California Prop 13 has been rewritten as a legal kill switch aimed squarely at this measure. And the single largest donor bankrolling the opposition moved his residency out of state months before the tax could ever touch him — then spent $82 million fighting it anyway.
This week, Phil and Camille pull the actual ballot language, the Legislative Analyst's fiscal review, and campaign finance filings to lay out what Propositions 40, 41, and 42 actually do, and who's really lined up on each side.
For more on the systems behind California's politics, Phil's book The Gilded State is available now.
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