California voters reject measure to tax the wealth of billionaires

Voters in California have rejected a one-time tax on billionaires, despite growing anger over global wealth disparity. The tax would have forced around 200 billionaires of the state to cough up 5% of their total net worth, with the money largely dedicated to helping pay for health care. Now, projections are showing that the so-called Proposition 40 will not pass nearly a week, of course, after voters cast their ballots at the same time as the midterm elections. Advocates calculated the one-off tax would raise about a hundred billion dollars. Opponents though said it would push the wealthy to leave California. Well, let's hear from our correspondent Loïc Pia in Los Angeles. And the no wins indeed. Seems like Californians were convinced by the argument that this measure could push the billionaires out of the state. But the yes campaign seems to think that money played a major part as well. The no campaign had hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on ads, on TV, on social media, much more than what the yes campaign had available. But another problem for the yes campaign was the lack of a united front. Governor Gavin Newsom and the new governor, Renner, Javier Becerra, both. Opposed the measure because they were afraid to see the billionaires leaving the state and that measure was followed all across the country. Bernie Sanders came from all the way from Vermont to LA to campaign for the yes, because if the measure had passed in California, it would have probably opened doors for other states in the US. But when you see progressive. Voters, like Californians, turning it down, it probably buries it for a while. And we'll see as well what kind of impact that Prop 40 can have on Gavin Newsom. The governor probably going to run for the presidential election. And we'll see if other candidates in the primary are using that Prop 40 against him to say that he sided with billionaires that didn't vote well for him. Many Republicans during the midterms, maybe it won't help the Democrats either during the primary, that we'll see. Loïc Pia there reporting for us from Los Angeles.