By admin 
A billionaire-backed constitutional amendment that will bar future taxes on personal property and retirement accounts has been approved by voters, according to the Associated Press. The approval of Proposition 42 could add a hurdle to passing future wealth taxes like the defeated, one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires envisioned by Prop. 40.
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Preliminary results as of 5:48 p.m. Friday showed Prop. 42 winning about 51.7% of the vote, with about 48.3% voting no.
The measure was one of two proposals on the ballot that sought to void Prop. 40 with poison pill provisions. Had Prop. 41 or Prop. 42 passed alongside the wealth tax, the measure with the most votes would have taken precedence.
Both propositions were added to the ballot by Building a Better California, a committee funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and other wealthy Prop. 40 critics. The group contributed a combined $229 million into the two measures, although it stopped funding Prop. 41 in September and that measure was ultimately defeated.
Most of the advertisements around Prop. 42 featured other groups backing the proposition, including California Professional Firefighters, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, and the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California.
In a statement sent by the committee backing Prop. 42, Chris Hannan, president of the Trades Council, said building trades union members “put in long, hard days, and the retirement they build is something they earn one paycheck at a time.”
“California voters stood up and said that money belongs to the workers who saved it,” Hannan said. “With Prop 42, the men and women who build this state can retire with confidence that their savings are protected.”
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The group’s spokesperson, Abby Lunardini, said in a statement Monday the proposition would address an idea “that’s been proposed multiple times in Sacramento,” referring to unsuccessful legislation. Those bills, like a wealth tax proposed with AB 259 in 2023, were largely designed to tax the ultra-wealthy, although Prop. 42’s backers argued future efforts could target a broader group.
“As Californians face rising costs, the stakes for this long-term protection could not be higher,” Lunardini said.
Top leaders at the union behind Prop. 40, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, have said they will pursue another tax on the ultra-wealthy in 2028 if the Legislature and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra don’t enact something similar to address federal funding cuts to healthcare.
If the SEIU-UHW decided to pursue another wealth tax similar to Prop. 40, the union would need to propose a constitutional amendment of their own with language voiding Prop. 42. Or they would need to work around its requirements, including Prop. 42’s ban on taxes that apply retroactively.
SEIU-UHW chief of staff Suzanne Jimenez said in a statement that “the billionaires behind Prop 42 do not care about protecting Californians’ retirement savings.”
Jimenez said Prop. 42’s passage will not “stem the tide of Californians demanding accessible healthcare and accountability from billionaires who have taken that away.”
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