News

Occasionally I get inquiries from donors asking how they should respond to requests for support from other organizations that they worry might duplicate what GFC does. Recently I responded to one such request as follows…

Earlier this week in Sacramento, a wealth tax initiative was filed that would impose an excise tax in 2026 on “excessive accumulation of wealth,” which is defined as $1 billion or more.

Yesterday was the deadline for CA Governor Gavin Newsom to take final action on bills passed by the 2025 Legislature. He signed 794 and vetoed 123. Since taking office in 2019, Newsom has now signed 5,710 bills and $1.942 trillion of budgets. How has California performed since he took office?

Thanks in large part to 500 letters of opposition from members of the GFC Network, yesterday Governor Newsom vetoed AB 699, a bill that would have blinded voters to the costs of tax and bond ballot measures.

Last week the CA Legislature adjourned its 2025 session during which legislators introduced ~2400 bills and passed ~800 that Governor Newsom has until October 13 to sign or veto. We didn’t have a particularly good year. I’d give it a “C” grade.

GFC has sent the following letter to Governor Newsom requesting a veto on AB 699.

Earlier today in Sacramento we delivered a letter signed by 500 members of the GFC Network in opposition to AB 699, a bill that would exempt ballot measures that authorize the issuance of bonds, impose a tax, or increase a tax with more than one rate from laws requiring ballots to disclose the amount of money to be raised and the rate and duration of the tax to be levied.

When Gavin Newsom took office as governor in January 2019, California’s unemployment rate was the 13th highest in the nation and just five percent above the national rate. But now California’s unemployment rate is the highest in the nation and nearly 30 percent above the national rate. What should California’s next governor do to improve the market for job seekers?

One of the reasons government unions in California are polling for opportunities to raise taxes was exposed earlier this week when State Controller Cohen issued a report that the state now has $95 billion of obligations to retired state employees for post-retirement healthcare, $10 billion more than the year before.

California’s government employee unions and other beneficiaries of government spending are pressing state legislators to enact a law that would obscure the costs of bond and tax measures.