Source report & NRT opinion
$7.5-billion 'mini-NIH' plan goes to California voters under bill signed by Newsom
Based on reporting by Los Angeles Times.
Source preview
California voters will decide whether to create a $7.5 billion state scientific research arm similar to the National Institutes of Health. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that puts the issue before voters in March 2028.
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NRT commentary
How We See It
California is going to put a $7.5 billion question on the March 2028 ballot, and no, it's not a dare. Governor Newsom just signed a bill that lets voters create a state-level “mini-NIH,” a brand new research agency with a price tag bigger than most state budgets. If this sounds like a lot, it is. The federal government already runs a perfectly good National Institutes of Health, and California is now asking taxpayers to fund a second one, because apparently one wasn't enough.
The timing is telling. California has a notorious housing crisis, an out-of-control homeless population, and some of the highest taxes in the country. Yet Newsom and the legislature look at those priorities and decide the urgent need is another sprawling bureaucracy in Sacramento. The pitch will be about cures and breakthroughs, because that always polls well. But the track record of California's big spending ideas is a graveyard of promises. The state can't manage its own high-speed rail project, but we're supposed to trust it with a $7.5 billion research empire?
There is something deeply unserious about this. Ballot initiatives have become the go-to escape hatch for politicians who don't want to make hard choices. Put it to the voters, let them figure out the funding, and then take the credit when it sounds noble. What this really does is lay the groundwork for a permanent new tax stream dressed up as science. And by 2028, when the state's finances are even worse, the sales pitch will shift from "invest in the future" to "we can't abandon innovation."
Conservatives should see this for what it is: a blank check with a lab coat. The federal government is drowning in debt and California wants to build its own shadow NIH? It's reckless. We hope California voters are paying attention now, because the measure hasn't even been written yet, and the fight will be about how much of their paychecks to hand over. If the last decade taught us anything, it's that the state's ambitions far exceed its ability to deliver. Voters should send this one back to the drawing board.
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