Posts tagged Tom Steyer
Gavin Newsom’s race to block a billionaire tax
June 13, 2026 // The growing coalition is tightening pressure on SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan, whose wealth-tax crusade has roiled California politics for months, to pull the measure. The message to Regan is blunt: Back down now, or risk going into a costly ballot fight increasingly alone. “Dave Regan is seeing very plainly what he’ll be up against if he goes through with this,” said a consultant working to defeat the measure who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive dynamics. The union downplayed the mounting pushback, arguing it was not representative of the groups’ members.
How Teachers’ Unions Became Political Big Spenders
May 18, 2026 // A new report out today accuses both the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) of spending tens of millions of dollars on electing Democratic political candidates, and prioritizing politicking over the needs and interests of their union members. The report, conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), Gevura Fund, and Rutgers University, among others, found that of the NEA’s $450 million annual disbursement budget from fiscal year 2025, less than $46 million, or 10 percent, was spent on activities directly representing the union’s constituents.
California’s War on Autonomous Trucking
May 14, 2026 // As structural economic factors push costs for the freight industry and consumers higher, the American public has three options. It can accept higher prices for all transportation services; it can enlarge the labor pool through immigration; or it can embrace new technology that improves transportation productivity and resolves the Baumol dilemma. Becerra, Steyer, and Khanna have followed the path prescribed by FreightWaves’ Fuller, promising to force higher freight costs onto the public. While the Golden State’s coalition politics might require genuflecting to the Teamsters, Californians are bound to notice before long that they’re paying higher prices than people in other states while also lagging behind them technologically.
CALIFORNIA: Unions opposing Trump agenda pouring money into Proposition 50 campaign
October 27, 2025 // Besides opposing pleas from former President Obama and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s powerful, left-leaning labor unions are another factor that may influence the outcome of the Nov. 4 special election. Unions representing California school teachers, carpenters, state workers and nurses have plowed more than $23 million into efforts to pass Proposition 50, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosure reports about donations exceeding $100,000. That’s nearly one-third of the six-figure donations reported through Thursday. Not only do these groups have major interests in the state capitol, including charter school reform, minimum wage hikes and preserving government healthcare programs, they also are deeply aligned with efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats to put their party in control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 election.