proposition

Opponents of the billionaire tax on the November ballot have vastly outraised the proposal’s supporters, with the anti-Proposition 40 effort and the backers of two other ballot measures crafted to nullify it raising $187 million compared to the $32 million raised by boosters of the wealth tax, according to campaign finance documents filed with the state.

The reports, filed Thursday, account for donations through Sept. 19 and do not include several million dollars that have poured into campaign coffers in recent days. The numbers are expected to vastly increase before the Nov. 3 election.

The bulk of the money raised by the proponents of Proposition 40, which would enact a one-time 5% tax on California billionaires’ assets, appears to have been spent on gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot. The campaign had only $207,000 in the bank, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

A leader of the union that crafted the proposal accused wealthy Californians who are spending heavily against the measure of lying to voters. The measure is designed to offset $100 billion in impending federal healthcare funding cuts expected to impacts millions of Californians.

“The billionaires take and take — tax break after tax break — and now they’re spending that money to deceive voters and avoid paying their fair share,” said Suzanne Jimenez, the chief of staff of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West. “Voters want their money back from the billionaires and want local emergency rooms to stay open. California does not need more tax breaks for billionaires. California needs emergency rooms for patients, hospitals that stay open, and healthcare people can access and afford.”

Opponents of the billionaire tax argue that it would do more harm than good.

“The more Californians learn, the more they see Proposition 40 for what it is — a harmful tax scheme that permanently damages the state’s budget and economy with zero accountability or safeguards to ensure funding actually improves care or lowers costs for patients,” said California Medical Assn. President Dr. René Bravo, the leader of one of the groups opposing the billionaire tax.

Proposition 41 would nullify the billionaire tax if, in the event that both measures are approved, it receives more “yes” votes. Proposition 41 would prohibit any new state tax from being excluded from a voter-approved cap that restricts how much tax revenue the state can spend each year.

“Californians deserve better results for their hard-earned tax dollars,” said Molly Weedn, a spokesperson for the Proposition 41 campaign.

Proposition 42 would prohibit new taxes on personal property, intellectual property, retirement accounts and other assets, and would limit situations in which a ballot measure or state lawmakers can impose or raise taxes retroactively — both of which are essential parts of Proposition 40. If both measures pass and Proposition 42 receives more “yes” votes, it would nullify the wealth tax.

The proposed billionaire tax has divided California Democrats, with Gov. Gavin Newsom opposing it while the state Democratic party supports it.

In recent polling, a majority of likely voters did not support any of the three proposals.

While 45% of likely voters supported the billionaire tax, 42% opposed it, according to a poll released Friday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Voters also are torn about the two ballot measures designed to nullify it.

The other measure receiving great attention, Proposition 39, which would require voters to show government-issued ID to cast ballots, faces a similar financial disparity. Opponents to the measure have raised $39.3 million compared to $15.6 million garnered by supporters.

Fifty-two percent of likely California voters oppose the voter ID proposal, while 39% support it and 9% are undecided, according to the Berkeley poll.

In the race to replace Newsom, Democratic former Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra has raised $35.8 million, while his GOP rival, conservative strategist and television commentator Steve Hilton, has raised $22.3 million.

Becerra remains the front-runner in the governor’s race, which is not surprising since Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1. In last week’s Berkeley poll, the Democrat had the support of 58% of likely voters, while 33% backed the Republican.

More state money to pay for arts teachers will reach local schools if legislation signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom works out as intended, but the new law will not resolve a lawsuit accusing the Los Angeles school district of misspending as much as $77 million in its share of the funding.

The aim of Assembly Bill 2440 is to encourage more school systems to use arts funding made available through Proposition 28, which voters passed in November 2022.

“The clear message we heard was that many school districts have been struggling to navigate legal ambiguity regarding compliance with Proposition 28,” said bill author Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) in a recent statement to The Times. He said his goal was to provide “statewide guidance” so that all or most school systems could use the money without concern over violations of spending rules that could result in financial penalties.

Proposition 28 sets aside an amount equal to 1% of the state’s base education funding — close to $1 billion per year — to increase arts education. This extra funding is drawn down from the state’s general fund — so it adds to the total allotted for education.

The initial funding, nearly a billion dollars statewide, went out for the 2023-24 school year and has continued annually. But millions of dollars have not yet been spent, according to early reviews of the data.

Some local officials said they were holding back over concerns that they would inadvertently violate the rules for spending the money — and would then have to pay it back, creating significant financial risk.

This bill had backing from arts organizations, education and school district officials and the California Teachers Assn. No opposition was recorded in the legislative record; nor were there any opposing votes as the bill worked its way through the legislative process.

But then Austin Beutner — the author of Proposition 28 — learned of the measure and stepped forward with concerns. He contendedthe bill would make using the arts money easier, but in wrong ways. He said the bill would undermine the guarantee that new arts funding would reach every school. Also it would in effect eliminate the provision that campuses serving low-income communities receive higher levels of new funding. Moreover — and of key importance — the legislation would allow districts to use the new arts money to replace existing arts funding, leaving students no better off than before, he said.

Beutner had structured Proposition 28 precisely to prevent this supplanting of funds. Districts not willing to provide the required increased instruction at every school would, by design, lose access to the new arts money.

Beutner began to rally opposition, including United Teachers Los Angeles, L.A. mayoral candidate Nithya Raman and San Diego school board President Richard Barrera, who is running for state superintendent of public instruction — and who has the endorsement of the California Teachers Assn.

Beutner also announced his attention to file litigation against the bill.

Muratsuchi said he had no intent to undermine the goals of Proposition 28 — and a compromise soon emerged.

The final version — which has Beutner’s approval — clarifies that small schools or small school districts can pool their money to share an arts teacher, provided that every school gets the additional arts instruction. The bill also gives some legal protection for school districts against financial penalties if their arts funding decreases as a result of factors beyond their control, such as the expiration of a grant.

An LAUSD lawsuit continues

Beutner alleges that L.A. Unified has intentionally misused the new arts money.

Beutner pursued passage of Proposition 28 after serving as superintendent of L.A. Unified. His stint ended in mid-2021 with the expiration of a three-year contract.

“LAUSD has done exactly what the law prohibits,” Beutner alleged in an ongoing lawsuit filed in February 2025. “It has eliminated existing funding sources for existing art teachers, and replaced those funds with Proposition 28 funds, thereby violating the requirement that the funds supplement rather than supplant existing sources.”

The lawsuit lists 37 elementary schools with the same or reduced money for arts instruction from 2022-23 to 2023-24 — when the new funding first arrived — and alleges that most L.A. Unified schools faced a similar funding situation.

Before the lawsuit, but in response to growing criticism, L.A. Unified officials quietly added $30 million to the elementary school arts budget for the 2024-25 school year amid ongoing accusations from Beutner, union leaders and parents.

The district has defended its actions.

“We continue to follow implementation guidance as provided by the state of California to ensure that we are fully complying with the requirements of Prop. 28,” the district said in a statement at the time of the lawsuit, a contention that it has made repeatedly.

The slate of statewide measures on the Nov. 3 ballot provides voters two opportunities to tax the rich, which in past years has proved tantalizing to California’s left-leaning electorate.

Only one of those measures has strong voter support, however, and it’s not the proposition that’s attracted nationwide attention, ignited a nearly quarter-billion-dollar political slugfest and created a rift among top leaders in the Democratic Party.

Likely voters expressed middling support for Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets intended to compensate for an impending $100 billion in federal healthcare funding cuts. They were far more likely to back Proposition 3, a ballot measure that would make permanent a tax increase on the wealthy that funds schools and healthcare, according to a poll released Friday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that is co-sponsored by The Times.

Proposition 3 appears to be a much less controversial endeavor, which may explain why it has more voter support. The ballot measure would extend a tax enacted in 2012 on individuals who earn at least $360,000 a year that is set to expire in 2031. Proposition 40 proposes a brand-new tax on billionaires and is opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who fears that it could hurt the state’s finances in the long run.

“When you’re going about taxing the billionaires’ assets, I mean that’s something kind of new and different, and it’s risky, and the governor’s against it, and you know a lot of people are expressing caution about it,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll.

Voters are deeply concerned about income disparity but also skeptical about the unusual approach of the billionaire tax.

Proposition 40 has drawn the greatest attention and campaign spending of the 14 ballot measures voters will decide on Nov. 3.

In the poll, 45% of likely voters support the proposal, while 42% oppose it and 13% are undecided. That’s a decline in support compared with six weeks ago, when 48% of likely voters supported it while 41% opposed it, and comes after nearly $100 million of spending on television ads, social media messages and mailers, largely from opponents.

The billionaire tax was crafted by a healthcare union in response to legislation passed by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump last year that could result in millions of Californians losing Medi-Cal coverage, rural hospitals shuttering and other healthcare services being slashed unless a new funding source is found.

The proposal would retroactively apply to billionaires who lived in California as of Jan. 1, prompting some to preemptively move out of the state. Ninety percent of the revenue would fund healthcare programs, and the remaining funds would be spent on education programs and food assistance.

There are two counterproposals on the ballot that would nullify the wealth tax if either receives more votes than Proposition 40, and they have raised $144 million. Voters are torn about Proposition 41, which would prohibit any new state taxes from being excluded from a voter-approved cap that restricts how much tax revenue the state can spend each year. The billionaire tax would have such an exclusion. Voters also are divided on Proposition 42, which would prohibit new taxes on personal property, intellectual property, retirement accounts and other assets and would limit situations in which a ballot measure or state lawmakers can impose or raise taxes retroactively — both of which are essential parts of the billionaire tax initiative.

Proposition 42 has greater support, with 43% backing it, 34% opposing it and the remainder undecided, according to the poll. Even more voters were uncertain about Proposition 41: 3 in 10 said they were undecided, while 37% said they supported it and 33% said they planned to vote against it.

The large number of undecided voters this close to the election points to voters being overwhelmed by the sheer number of statewide ballot measures, DiCamillo said.

“It’s confusion,” he said, adding that many voters may make a decision once they receive more ballot information.

That said, the fact that none of these proposals has the support of more than 50% of likely voters doesn’t bode well for their prospects, DiCamillo said.

Ballots will begin arriving in the mailboxes of the state’s 23.2 million voters in days.

Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 in California, but the party’s leaders are deeply divided about the billionaire tax, given the volatile state budget’s reliance on the wealthy. Newsom, who is pondering a 2028 presidential campaign, and the two men vying to replace him — Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — oppose it. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a potential 2028 White House contender, supports it, as does the California Democratic Party.

Additionally, Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and architect of the ballot measure, has come under scrutiny. Regan has been accused of threatening and intimidating women who worked for the union’s parent organization, and of physically assaulting one, according to reporting by The Times. He was also accused of trying to extort SEIU’s state council, suggesting that it could face an investigation over “governance issues” if it did not support Proposition 40, according to an investigation commissioned by SEIU.

Regan has denied these claims, describing them as a “smear” campaign orchestrated by Proposition 40 opponents.

Much less attention has been paid to Proposition 3. Californians who earn more than $360,000 now are subject to a 10.3% tax, while those who earn more than $721,000 face a 12.3% levy. The vast majority of the billions raised through this tax go to K-12 schools, while the remainder is spent on community colleges and healthcare.

The other ballot measure that is receiving national attention is Proposition 39, which would require voters to present a government-issued identification document to cast a ballot or provide a PIN or the last four digits of their Social Security number when submitting mail-in ballots.

The measure also would require the California secretary of state and county election officials to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens by “using government data,” which according to supporters could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, jury summons information and other government records.

The proposal comes as Trump has continued to make claims that elections, notably in California, are being rigged by Democrats. Americans are increasingly alarmed about the security and sanctity of voting, and growing fears about intimidation efforts at polling places in the midterm elections.

Fifty-two percent of likely California voters oppose the voter ID proposal, while 39% support it and 9% are undecided, according to the poll.

“It doesn’t look like it’s in a strong position,” DiCamillo said, noting that while voters have opposed it in prior polls, the opposition has grown.

Nearly one-third of voters were undecided about two other propositions:

• Likely voters were evenly split about Proposition 4, which would repeal a ban on public funding of campaigns, with 35% supporting it and 35% opposing it, and the remainder undecided.
• Four out of 10 likely voters opposed Proposition 43, which would increase the threshold necessary to pass local taxes from a simple majority to two-thirds, while 31% supported measure and 29% were undecided.

Voters will also face questions about environmental policy, housing, recall elections and other matters, as well as statewide, congressional and local elections. Californians are fatigued by the length of the ballot.

The Berkeley IGS/Times poll findings are based on an online survey in English and Spanish of 6,989 registered California voters, 4,512 of whom are considered likely voters, on Sept. 15-20. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of about 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

SACRAMENTO — The California Primary Care Assn. and five clinics filed a civil lawsuit in federal court Friday accusing SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West and its president, Dave Regan, of racketeering and using ballot initiatives to “shake down” community health centers.

The association alleges that Regan and his union orchestrated a “multi-year campaign of coercion, threats, and economic pressure” to “extort” what the lawsuit describes as “valuable property rights” and “labor-organizing terms” from CPCA and the health centers the association represents in California, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Times.

The suit says Regan pushed Proposition 44, which if approved by voters in November will restrict spending at nonprofit community health clinics, as political leverage against the industry. Regan then offered to call off the measure if CPCA agreed to support the union’s efforts to unionize 25,000 industry workers, the lawsuit states.

In the complaint, CPCA estimates that 25,000 new union members would generate $2.37 million in monthly revenue from dues paid to UHW.

“This is about Dave Regan and UHW in particular adopting a strategy to create harmful legislation and harmful ballot initiatives to force people to the table to negotiate favorable agreements that will benefit them financially and then when those agreements don’t go through, they allow these initiatives to go through to create punishment for the organizations that can’t come to terms, and then they keep coming back, over and over and over again,” said Brandon Thornock, chief executive of plaintiff Shasta Community Health, echoing claims in the lawsuit.

“It’s a complete waste of resources and it’s amoral.”

A spokesperson for UHW did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. In an interview in July, Regan denied asking the clinics to support his unionization efforts in exchange for dropping Proposition 44.

“We wanted to construct a relationship with the clinic association that prioritized appropriate funding of the community clinics in California, including restoring the healthcare cuts that were introduced by the ‘One Big [Beautiful] Bill,’” Regan said previously. “It was a strategic relationship where we’re working in a mutually cooperative way to properly fund the healthcare system to respect workers, and they were not interested in that.”

Regan is a powerful figure in California politics who has a history of using the ballot box to try to force the healthcare industry to unionize. The union leader has come under scrutiny this year over claims about his extreme political tactics, intimidating behavior toward and threats against women, and an allegation of assault more than 15 years ago, all of which he denies.

Regan is also the architect of California’s billionaire tax, a proposal on the November ballot to apply a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of billionaires that has splintered labor and divided Democrats.

The CPCA lawsuit, in the federal court in the Eastern District of California, alleges that Regan’s political tactics are not designed to win initiatives, “but to subjugate and terrify.”

The union, the lawsuit states, has filed dozens of punitive ballot measures in California “targeting hospitals and dialysis providers with the implied threat or directly stated purpose of coercing health care providers into acquiescing to their union organizing or bargaining demands.” UHW has spent over $216 million, the suit says, on measures to “harm patients, destroy services, and drive providers out of business.” The vast majority of the UHW-backed measures have been withdrawn, usually after the industry agrees to concessions, the suit states.

“No other singular entity or individual has engaged in such widespread corruption of California’s initiative process,” the suit states.

Proposition 44 requires that community clinics spend 90% of revenue on patient services, which Regan has said ensures that money is aligned with the mission of the health centers.

CPCA and health centers say restricting the funding would dramatically reduce money for other essential services and leave some clinics at risk of closing their doors.

The CPCA lawsuit alleges that Regan’s demands on Proposition 44 were sent in an email in January from a legislative staff member on behalf of the union. The offer, presented as a joint submission from UHW and two union affiliates, included a requirement that community health centers “hold elections for at least 5,000 employees in each of five years the agreement would be in effect, resulting in elections for 25,000 employees over the five-year period.”

The complaint says the email also disclosed that UHW said it would drop the initiative if CPCA agreed to the terms.

“The e-mail unambiguously shows that UHW and the Union Affiliates — bullied and instructed by Regan — agreed and intended to participate in an endeavor to abuse the ballot initiative process to extract valuable labor concessions from CPCA and CHCs, in violation of federal and state law,” the complaint states.

Negotiations to withdraw the measure fell apart on June 24, the day before the deadline to rescind initiatives from the statewide ballot.

The lawsuit alleges that the union offered a new deal that same day.

“UHW would withdraw the Clinic Penalty Initiative if, in exchange, CPCA reversed its opposition to UHW’s billionaires’ wealth tax initiative and took the funds it raised to oppose the Clinic Penalty Initiative and instead used that money to assist UHW in passing its wealth tax,” the lawsuit alleges. “The next morning, Regan, through an intermediary, offered the same ‘deal.’ CPCA refused to entertain such discussions.”

The lawsuit states that California’s community health centers served 6.7 million people in 2025 and 67% are enrolled in Medi-Cal, state subsidized healthcare coverage for low-income Californians. In many rural areas, health centers are sometimes the only source of primary care.

Thornock said Shasta Community Health has patients who travel more than an hour to get care and provides a program that transports them to health facilities. Under Proposition 44, the program would not be considered patient services.

“It was designed to create for us what becomes an existential crisis in many cases,” he said.

The CPCA lawsuit states that Regan and the union began seeking to extort unionization from nonprofit hospitals through ballot measures in 2011 and used the same strategy to try to grow their membership among dialysis center workers beginning in 2017. In early 2022, they began targeting CPCA and health centers through legislation, the lawsuit stated.

The suit also alleges that Regan and UHW are in violation of a California law that prohibits a proponent of a ballot initiative from seeking, soliciting, bargaining for, or obtaining any money or a thing of value from any person or entity for abandoning or preventing an initiative from moving forward.

A week before the lawsuit became public, The Times reported that independent investigators hired by SEIU found in a report that Regan had tried to “extort” an SEIU state council endorsement of the billionaire tax from other California union leaders. An outside law firm that investigated internal charges against Regan found that he suggested to David Huerta, then president of SEIU California, that the state council could be investigated for “governance issues” if the council did not endorse the billionaire tax on the November ballot. The state council later voted to remain neutral on the measure.

The law firm’s investigation, which was paid for by Service Employees International Union, substantiated an allegation that Regan threatened Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California, over the council’s position on the ballot measure. The SEIU probe found an allegation that Regan also assaulted one of Orr’s predecessors in the job, Courtni Pugh, in 2009, to be credible.

A second investigation conducted by an outside law firm hired by SEIU California found sufficient evidence to substantiate a complaint that Regan bullied Jessica Bartholow, the council’s government relations director.

In interviews with investigators hired by the union and with The Times, Regan admitted to swearing at a staff member for SEIU California and adamantly denied bullying, threatening and assaulting women or seeking to force the state council to back his measure.

Regan remains in his job and alleges that he’s being unfairly targeted over his advocacy for the billionaire tax. SEIU, the national umbrella organization that represents local SEIU affiliates, has not taken any disciplinary action against him while an internal administrative review process moves forward.

Sources involved in negotiations over the billionaire tax said Regan also asked for concessions to grow his union in exchange for rescinding the measure from the ballot this year, which The Times previously reported.

Regan’s list of demands included union contracts with two private hospitals and a health clinic, an organizing neutrality agreement with healthcare clinics statewide, recognition of his union from dialysis clinics and for billionaires to remove measures they launched in response to his tax, according to two sources familiar with the talks who were granted anonymity to share details of the discussions.

The union leader called the allegation “categorically false” and denied that he asked for concessions for his union in exchange for removing the billionaire tax from the ballot.

A Bay Area Republican Party leader who earlier this year claimed dead people cast votes in Marin County in the Proposition 50 special election has backtracked on that comment.

But don’t expect him to stop digging. In an interview with The Times, John Turnacliff, chairman of the Marin County Republicans, said he still thinks more should to be done to ensure voter rolls are accurate, and indicated that he and his group would continue their probe.

At a Marin County Board of Supervisors meeting last week, Turnacliff apologized for his dead-voter claims. SFGATE was first to report on his apology.

“I’m here today to retract that statement I made a few months ago as far as those voters being on the roll,” he said at the meeting. “I did not find them. I apologize to the Board of Supervisors and to the registrar’s office and to the registrar for any angst and consternation that could have put on you since then.”

When the county supervisors met on Feb. 10, he claimed that Marin Republicans found that 73 dead people voted in the Nov. 4 Proposition 50 special election following a ballot analysis. The proposition, which passed by a wide margin, takes effect in January and redraws California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.

Turnacliff then called on Natalie Adona, the county’s registrar of voters, to investigate.

“In summary, dead people are voting in Marin County, and we would like to know why,” he said at the meeting.

The county voluntarily reviewed the list of names provided to them by the Marin Republicans, according to reporting by SFGATE; the registrar found that there were up to five deceased people in the list, but there was no record of votes in their names following their deaths.

Following the county’s investigation, Turnacliff checked his work. He bought subscriptions to Ancestry.com and another personal information database. As he looked up the names on his group’s list, he realized that many were in fact alive.

“I jumped the gun,” he told The Times on Wednesday, referring to his “dead people” list. “I just thought, if I was wrong, I should admit it.”

He publicly apologized because he wanted to take the “aggressive high road,” and because he does not want to have an adversarial relationship with the registrar and her office, since he intends to work with them in the future and plans to observe future vote counts, he said.

He’s been praised for his admitting he was wrong, but some people have incorrectly interpreted the apology as an admission that voter fraud doesn’t exist, he said.

Turnacliff, who works in equipment leasing, began digging into Marin County voter rolls after the 2020 election, which he described as “not right,” echoing claims touted by Trump and beliefs held by many Republicans. “It comes from the heart. … There’s no political agenda,” Turnacliff said of his intentions.

He later added, in an email, that his group planned to keep investigating “other irregularities.”

“The next time I speak about election irregularities, I will have bulletproof evidence,” he said in the email.

Californians are deeply frustrated with the length of the November ballot, which includes 14 statewide propositions, and gloomy about the direction of the state and the nation, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll published Tuesday night.

They “are feeling very pessimistic,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC’s statewide survey director. “You know that comes out not just in the questions we ask about the economy, but generally about the direction of the state and the nation. This just indicates the level of negativity that people have going into this final stage before people cast their ballots this November.”

More than half of the state’s likely voters believe that California is headed in the wrong direction, and 73% predict sour economic times in the state next year. Less than a quarter of likely voters believe the nation is headed in the right direction.

President Trump has an approval rating of 27% of likely voters, but that’s better than Congress, which has a 16% approval rating. Majorities do not have confidence in either major political party’s ability to solve problems.

Ballots will begin arriving in 23.2 million voters’ mailboxes in a little over two weeks. Nearly 80% of likely voters are frustrated by the length of the ballot, which includes 14 propositions as well as statewide, congressional and local elections. This a rare consensus among Democratic, Republican and independent voters.

“This year, there are more propositions on the ballot than we’ve seen for a decade,” Baldassare said. “Overwhelming majorities of Californians say that there are too many propositions on the ballot, too many things for them to decide. And many Californians feel that the wording of ballot initiatives makes it very hard for them to understand what happens if one passes.”

The proposal to tax the assets of billionaires to make up for federal government healthcare cuts, Proposition 40, has a slim lead in the poll, with 52% of likely voters saying they support the one-time 5% levy.

However, there are two ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42, that would nullify the wealth tax if one is approved and gets more votes than Proposition 40. Narrow majorities support both of these proposals, creating a quandary for wealth tax supporters: ensuring their proposal receives the support of a majority of voters while also tamping down support for the competing efforts.

Findings about the proposal to require showing government-issued identification to vote and the governor’s race show less competitive contests that break along predictable partisan lines in a state where registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1.

The voter ID measure is opposed by 55% of likely voters. In the race to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, 60% of likely voters support Democrat Xavier Becerra, and 38% support Republican Steve Hilton. The other 2% were undecided or do not plan to vote on the race.

The poll of 1,745 adult Californians was conducted Sept. 4-10, and has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points in either direction, and 3.8 percentage points among the 1,103 likely voters.

SACRAMENTO — Labor leader Dave Regan claimedFriday that he was the victim of a “smear” campaign orchestrated in part by wealthy Californians and said he has been falsely accused of attempting to “extort” an endorsement of the billionaire tax ballot measure and of physically assaulting a female union leader.

Investigations commissioned by the Service Employees International Union and SEIU California, and conducted by outside law firms, determined the allegations against Regan were credible, along with reports that he threatened and intimidated other female labor leaders. Regan, who is president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, vehemently denied the allegations, which were first reported by The Times Friday morning.

During a video news conference hours after the allegations were published, Regan claimed the probes were launched by opponents of Proposition 40 — the billionaire tax measure he helped place on the Nov. 3 ballot — as well as members of the SEIU California labor council with whom he had clashed in the past.

Regan, joined by other SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union leaders and members, also criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom for opposing the proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets.

Newsom is “trying to curry favor with the richest people in the state to fund [his] presidential campaign,” Regan said. “That is shameful behavior.”

Newsom and other opponents of the measure, including Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the California Teachers Assn., have expressed concern that Proposition 40 could push many of the state’s biggest taxpayers to relocate and destabilize state finances.

“The Governor supports a national tax on billionaires and is proud to stand with teachers, firefighters, reproductive health clinics, and others in opposing this poorly written state measure that will harm California,” said Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gardon.

Regan also criticized The Times’ reporting on the allegations, and an editorial opposing Proposition 40. He alleged that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Times’ owner, influenced coverage about the measure because he is a billionaire.

“We stand by our reporting,” said a Times spokesperson.

David Huerta, president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, and three other labor leaders filed a rare formal union charge against Regan in February. The SEIU investigation report, which was reviewed by The Times, supported Huerta’s claim that in December, Regan suggested the state council could be investigated for “governance issues” if the council did not endorse the proposed billionaire tax. Huerta was then president of SEIU California, which along with their national arm, did not endorse Proposition 40.

In July, the executive board for SEIU California voted to take a neutral position on the proposed wealth tax.

The investigation and a second inquiry conducted on behalf of SEIU California substantiated allegations that Regan threatened and intimidated women who worked for the state council. The investigation also determined an allegation that Regan physically assaulted a former executive director of the state labor organization, Courtni Pugh, in 2009, was credible.

Regan called the allegation that he assaulted Pugh a “complete fabrication.” Regan and other SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West members downplayed Pugh’s allegations against him because of her political consulting firm’s role opposing Proposition 40.

Pugh called his remarks “offensive” to the women who participated in the independent investigation.

“My testimony and the testimony of the other women were substantiated by investigators,” she said. “His claims were not.”

Regan remains in his job as the SEIU administrative process moves forward with hearings. Regan will get a chance to make his case before SEIU determines any appropriate disciplinary action.

Times Staff Writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.