California’s biggest election loser is Dave Regan, union boss who blew $47M on two failed ballot props

Labor boss Dave Regan tried unsuccessfully to tax billionaires this election season, earning a humiliating, if unofficial, title: California’s biggest election loser.

Regan, who serves as president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, led an unprecedented effort this year to levy a one-time tax on the state’s billionaires, kicking off a nearly $400 million fight on three connected state ballot measures.

By the end of Tuesday, it was clear the most controversial of the measures, Proposition 40, would go down in flames with almost 56% of voters opposed to the wealth tax.

And if that shellacking wasn’t bad enough, Regan’s other pet ballot measure — Prop. 44, which could have forced community health clinics to spend 90% of their revenues on program services — was rejected by 82% of voters. The union and its political spending arm squandered $17 million on the failed measure.

“His members should be driving him out with a pitchfork,” one California Democratic strategist told The California Post. “He should be embarrassed, but he won’t be because that’s just the kind of guy who he is.”

From past failed attempts to rein in dialysis clinics to this year’s billionaire tax and Prop. 44, the strategist estimated that Regan’s union had burned through more than $100 million in members’ dues on losing ballot fights over the years.

The defeat came on the heels of an embarrassing September surprise in which Regan was accused of threatening female colleagues and assaulting ex-labor executive Courtni Pugh, a Democratic operative close with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, who was working to defeat the billionaire tax.

SEIU-UHW’s committee that backed the billionaire tax reported $37.3 million in expenditures through Oct. 17. The union’s Proposition 44 committee reported another $11.1 million in expenses, and all it had to show for that effort was a 63-point drubbing.

Before results came in Tuesday night, Regan was already venting about the money billionaires had poured into what he called a “corrosive” advertising blitz. 

Flanked by Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, he vowed to put another billionaire tax on the ballot in 2028 if lawmakers failed to make the ultrawealthy “pay their fair share.”

“Whatever happens tonight, the reality is … somehow lost in the flood of advertising over the last few weeks, is the reality that since the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ passed, 1.8 million Californians have lost their health insurance,” said Regan.

Regan and his progressive cohort argued Prop. 40 was necessary to backfill federal healthcare cuts made by President Trump. But with so much money at stake, California billionaires corralled over $330 million in combined spending across multiple committees. Google co-founder Sergey Brin personally put up more than $100 million.

Regan’s future at the union could now hang in the balance.

Politico reported that SEIU International President April Verrett has the power to suspend or expel him as the national union weighs misconduct charges and his countercharges. Regan was reelected by a wide margin earlier this year.

A law firm’s investigation corroborated several allegations that Regan threatened union officials in the fight over the wealth tax and did not substantiate his claim that rivals retaliated against him. Regan denied the accusations and said opponents of the tax were using them to undermine him.

There’s also a question of whether Regan and SEIU-UHW executives may have personally profited off of the effort to tax billionaires. As of mid-October, the billionaire tax committee owed the union nearly $6.3 million, including $3.6 million for canvassing and nearly $638,000 listed as campaign workers’ salaries, according to state records.

Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for SEIU-UHW, issued a statement to The California Post saying that a “political reckoning” is still coming for billionaires.

“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,” Jimenez said.

“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.”

A source in California’s Democratic labor movement dismissed the allegations against Regan as insider squabbling, adding that Regan’s bigger problem with voters this year was a split progressive coalition. 

US Sen. Bernie Sanders and Khanna campaigned aggressively for the tax and the state Democratic Party endorsed it, but Newsom, Becerra, Planned Parenthood and the California Teachers Association opposed it.

That split “gave the billionaires a message to use beyond the losing message of ‘don’t tax us,’” the source said. 

Political science professor Thad Kousser said the Prop. 40 defeat would likely be cast nationally as a “death knell for the wealth tax movement.” 

However, Kousser said a federal tax would be better positioned to accomplish what Regan wanted because billionaires can move out of a state — an approach Newsom and Becerra also advocated for.

Auto loan titan Don Hankey — who was among the billionaires fleeing the state last year over Prop. 40 — told The California Post he was “very pleased” to see the tax go down.

Asked about the estimated tens of millions Regan’s union had squandered on ballot fights over the years, Hankey said, “That just hurts everybody.”

Despite Prop. 40’s defeat, Hankey said he only intends to visit his home in the Golden State.

“I still love California,” he said. “I’m also very happy in Las Vegas.”

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