Labor emerges as a clear winner from California Supreme Court's tax ruling

SACRAMENTO, California — California's labor unions secured a key victory in Thursday's bombshell state Supreme Court ruling that pulled a tax measure off the November ballot.

The high court's decision to invalidate the Taxpayer Protection Act, which would have made it harder to pass or raise taxes in California, handed a major win to unions and their members — as well as to Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats who had challenged the ballot initiative.

“I’m beyond excited!!!” the SEIU’s Tia Orr posted on X after the ruling, adding, the “threat to destroy California w/ greed and hubris lost today.”

Just two days earlier, labor groups and business interests struck a deal to remove another initiative from the ballot that would have repealed a 2004 law allowing workers to sue their employers on behalf of the state and other employees.

Taken together, the developments underscore the rapidly shifting political situation for labor groups that have been working to shape the upcoming slate of statewide ballot measures. In a span of mere days, labor’s two biggest headaches — and the ones on which they’d planned to spend heavily to defeat — have disappeared from the November ballot.

"We thought we were going to have a lot of ballot measures, but it's looking smaller and smaller, which is fantastic,” California Labor Federation head Lorena Gonzalez told POLITICO.

Powerful labor groups suddenly have a lighter political workload and a war chest with nowhere obvious to put it, raising the question: Where will labor focus its attention this fall?

Gonzalez said this week’s wins allow the Labor Federation to put its resources toward other issues — like the close California House races that could determine control of Congress and electing labor advocates to the Legislature.

There’s also a November ballot measure to raise the minimum wage to $18 per hour, a proposal that had been overshadowed by other ballot fights and had gotten next to no attention or funding this spring.

As of Thursday afternoon, major players in the ballot measure world were still regrouping after the California Supreme Court’s ruling, so it will likely take time for the dust to settle. There also may still be more changes to qualified initiatives between now and June 27, the deadline to remove measures from the November ballot.

Union members will vote next month on candidate and ballot measure endorsements, which will give a clearer sense of where they focus their money and resources this fall.

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