Pushing back against what they called politicized attacks on science, state lawmakers, labor unions, university officials and researchers on Monday announced plans for a 2026 ballot initiative that would make California the largest independent funder of scientific research in the nation.
Senate Bill 607, the California Science and Health Research Bond Act, aims to place a $23 billion measure on the November 2026 ballot to help replace billions in federal budget cuts that have gutted research into cancer, Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases and climate science.
University of California, Berkeley, policy student and patient advocate Ryan Manriquez, who lives with a rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy, told a crowd of supporters at Mission Bay Commons Park that the treatment that kept him alive would not exist without public research dollars.
“If these funding cuts to research happened a decade ago, I would not be speaking in front of you here today,” Manriquez said. “That’s not politics. That’s reality.”
The Trump administration’s proposed rollbacks would slash funding for the National Institutes of Health by 40%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 44% and the National Science Foundation by nearly 60% — the deepest cuts to research funding since World War II.
Beyond the systemwide funding freeze, researchers faced politically charged disruptions when the NIH briefly imposed, then abruptly rescinded, a rule prohibiting grantees from running programs that “advance or promote” diversity, equity and inclusion.
SB 607 proposes creating a California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would provide grants and loans to universities, hospitals and research companies working in biomedicine, behavioral health, substance addiction, climate science, wildfire prevention and pandemic preparedness.
Organizers say all projects would undergo competitive peer review and annual audits to ensure transparency and accountability.
Leading the effort are state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Assembly member José Luis Solache Jr., who represents part of southeast Los Angeles County, with support from the University of California, the United Auto Workers and a broad coalition of scientists. Wiener and Solache are Democrats.
“The U.S. has led on science for the last 80 years and that needs to continue, even though we have these Neanderthals running the country right now who are trying to stop that,” Wiener told the gathering. “No offense to Neanderthals.”
The NIH referred inquiries to the U.S. Health and Human Services Agency, which did not respond.
A high bar for passage
The bond would be among the largest in California history, and passing it will not be easy. To qualify as a proposition for the November 2026 ballot, it must win two-thirds approval in each chamber of the Legislature. Organizers plan to start gathering endorsements and financial backing early next year.
Dozens of researchers filled the park Monday, holding signs and sharing stories about endangered projects and lost grants, including several who traveled from the University of California, Davis, to stress the value of public investment in science.
“I think if we communicate properly about what we’re doing and how important it is, then Californians will support it,” said U.C. Davis’ Dennis Hartigan-O’Connor, who specializes in immunology, virology and protecting against infectious disease.
The measure mirrors Proposition 71, the $3 billion bond approved by voters in 2004 that created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a move that followed a similar backlash to federal policies after the George W. Bush administration placed restrictions on stem cell research. The initiative ultimately led to several Food and Drug Administration-approved therapies, though it also faced criticism for a slow rollout and limited transparency.
SB 607 is one of several ideas to center science research in California after the national cutbacks. Senate Bill 829, which Wiener introduced in February, would create the Institute for Scientific Research within the state’s Government Operations Agency, authorized to award grants and loans to universities and private companies. That bill remains in committee.
Backers are banking on bipartisan appeal for SB 607, noting that the NIH supports more than 55,000 jobs in the state, generates about $14 billion in economic activity and funds thousands of research grants in every part of California, including biotech hubs in San Diego and the Bay Area, and agricultural innovation centers in the Central Valley.
According to an analysis by United for Medical Research, a coalition of research institutions, corporations and patient advocates, NIH funding supports more than 400,000 jobs nationwide, and generates $2.56 in economic activity for every $1 invested.
“Science is part of California’s DNA, and it is one of the key reasons why this state is the fourth-largest economy in the world,” Wiener said. “We don’t want to see scientists leaving California and leaving the U.S. because they can’t even have the funding to do that research here.”
NIH funding cuts have led to more than 300 layoffs at the University of California, San Francisco, including international researchers who were forced to leave the country after losing their jobs.
Dr. Harold Collard, UCSF’s vice chancellor of research, said great damage came from the Trump administration’s termination of 104 research grants last spring.
“For every one of those, there are people laid off who lost their jobs,” Collard said. “For every one of those, there are patients, our community members, who are looking for and need answers that will remain unanswered because that research has stopped.”
UCSF postdoctoral researcher Atreya Dey, from the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, said one of the biggest losses to his lab was funding for COVID-19 research and pandemic preparedness, and the impact has been severe.
“When layoffs happen at this massive scale, it’s simply not possible to keep up,” Dey said. “All that expertise is lost, all that early investment, lost.”
Vanessa Jacoby, a UCSF faculty member and obstetrician gynecologist, said research funding “cuts, delays and delegitimization” have caused “many young, brilliant scientists in California” to abandon their research careers.
“When we lose them, we lose future, transformative innovations that will improve the health of California,” Jacoby said.
California caught in the crossfire
Although congressional leaders in both parties have signaled opposition to such deep reductions to research funding, scientists say the administration has found backdoor ways to withhold money.
A report in Roll Call, a newspaper covering Capitol Hill, confirmed that House and Senate Republicans planned to disregard the White House’s proposed 40% NIH cut, calling it “too much.” Yet even more modest reductions could result in dozens fewer drug discoveries over coming decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
UC has become a flashpoint in the standoff. Federal agencies have suspended about $584 million in University of California, Los Angeles, research funding and demanded $1 billion in repayments, citing an investigation into whether the university violated civil rights laws in its handling of campus antisemitism complaints and other alleged discrimination tied to protests, admissions and athletics policies.
UC President James B. Milliken warned that losing those funds would “completely devastate” the nation’s largest public university system, which receives more than $2.6 billion annually from NIH grants.
In a lawsuit filed in September, a coalition of faculty and staff argued that the Trump administration’s demands of were “based on disdain for the institutions’ curriculum, expressive activity on campuses, and initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Editor’s note: Besides doing her own writing, Sylvie Sturm is a staff adviser to Synapse, the UCSF student publication. Her role is unrelated to the university’s research, administration or funding activities.