Dave Regan

Dave Regan has run SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West with a single, explicit insight: in California, qualifying a ballot initiative costs $3 million to $5 million, while defending against one can cost a target industry $100 million per cycle. Calling ballot initiatives 'the best bargain in American politics^[2],' he has filed between 23 and 48 state and local measures since 2012, almost none of which passed at the ballot box because passing isn't the primary mechanism — leverage is.

Look at the two clearest tracks. On dialysis, where California has zero unionized dialysis workers, SEIU-UHW ran three nearly identical propositions in 2018 (Prop 8), 2020 (Prop 23), and 2022 (Prop 29), losing all three by 20-to-36-point margins while forcing DaVita and Fresenius to burn over $216 million. On hospitals, Regan filed executive-pay and pricing caps in 2014, 2016, and 2026, repeatedly withdrawing them in exchange for California Hospital Association deals on organizing rules, Medi-Cal lobbying, and dropping anti-union counter-measures — leading the California Primary Care Association to sue him personally for racketeering over Prop 44.

The steelman is that a union president's job is to win contracts and protect healthcare funding using every lawful pressure valve available. When Jerry Brown signed the $15 minimum wage (SB 3) in 2016 one week after checking the viability of SEIU-UHW's ballot signatures, and when Trump's federal budget threatened $30 billion a year in Medi-Cal cuts affecting one in three Californians, Regan used the only hammer big enough to force Sacramento to the table.

With Proposition 40, the 5% billionaire wealth tax, both motives are running at once: Regan literally offered Gavin Newsom to drop Prop 40 in exchange for a 2% legislative tax^[1], proving the leverage playbook was live, while also aligning with his members' existential need to backfill Medi-Cal. He is completely transparent that withdrawals are 'tactical gains^[3]' — ruthless institutional hardball rather than hypocrisy.