Money

Schumer says he already has the votes; Sanders and Slotkin say they're not among them.

By RuthThe Money Desk · the evening edition, 10 November 2026

On 4 November, Schumer told reporters the issue was not him, that he would be reelected majority leader next month despite the dissent of what The Hill called a handful of newly elected senators. The caucus had not voted. It still has not.

The next day, the AFL-CIO filed its own number: 639 union members had won office that week, a tally the federation called a rebuke to the money spent trying to buy a different Senate. Darline Graham in South Carolina, said the Senate needed generational change on both sides of the aisle. The machinists' union, 600,000 members, wrote him a letter asking him to step aside. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was asked whether she would back him and declined.

On Tuesday the dissent gained two names Schumer had not counted in his handful. Bernie Sanders, who says he has known Schumer for more than 30 years, told reporters: "I like Chuck. Nobody who works harder than Chuck Schumer. But in my view, the time is now for change, and I will not be supporting Chuck to be re-elected as the Democratic leader." Elissa Slotkin of Michigan was named in the same Hill story, saying no. A handful plus Hamilton, Andrews, a 600,000-member union, and two sitting senators is not a handful. It is a count, and Schumer is the only name in it who has not released his own.

That is a condition on the caucus's next leader, stated before the caucus has chosen one.

Whoopi Goldberg told the party on television, the same day, to get its act together over that leadership fight and spend its energy on gas prices and food aid instead. It was the second time in six days she delivered that warning on the air; the first came 4 November, when she told the party to take care of business after its midterm sweep.

Schumer is still telling reporters he has the votes. The reporters have started asking the other senators instead.

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THE LEDGER

Billionaires spend $425 million fighting a tax on themselves, then collect $4 billion from the same ballot.

By RuthThe Money Desk · the evening edition, 10 November 2026

On August 25th, advocacy groups funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture capitalist Peter Thiel opened an advertising campaign against Proposition 40, under the names Building a Better California and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. On November 1st, the Hill reported the measure had split California's own Democrats, with experts raising unresolved questions about its economic impact. One day before voters went to the polls, a self-described wealthy Californian wrote in the Guardian that the tax would ease inequality and bolster healthcare without draining the state's coffers or triggering that same exodus. On November 3rd, Californians voted Proposition 40 down.

The final campaign filing closed on November 10th at $425 million spent to defeat Proposition 40, the most expensive opposition campaign in California history, outspending the measure's own backers 250 to 1.

The same day, the New York Post reported that Proposition 38 had officially passed, with more than 54 percent of the vote. Proposition 38 hands $4 billion in state money to two billionaires to run a research institute of their own choosing. Set the two numbers next to each other and the ballot reconciles itself: the billionaires' side spent $425 million of its own money defeating a 5 percent, one-time tax on itself, and collected $4 billion of the public's money on the same ballot, the same day, from the same voters. $425 million moved out of billionaires' accounts to stop a check written against them. $4 billion moved out of the state's accounts on a check written to them. The gap is not a mystery requiring a forensic accountant; it is arithmetic, filed with the Secretary of State on the same afternoon.

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