Union boss Dave Regan allegedly uses ballot initiatives to bully people into doing what he wants.

That’s the accusation at the heart of a new lawsuit by a group of community health clinics who say that Regan tried to use one of this year’s ballot initiatives, Proposition 44, to “extort” them (in the complaint’s words) and force them to unionize.

Proposition 44 would require community health clinics to spend at least 90% of their budgets on actual health care.

It sounds reasonable, until you start asking where the number 90 came from.

According to the lawsuit, the 90% threshold would put most of the community health clinics in California out of business.

And that’s the point.

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Regan, who is president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – United Healthcare Workers (UHW) West, wanted the clinics to allow him to unionize 25,000 workers.

According to the lawsuit, Regan threatened the clinics: If they refused his terms, he would file a ballot initiative to destroy them.

And when talks broke down, that’s what he allegedly did.

It’s not the first time Regan has been accused of being a bully.

The lawsuit lays out similar efforts by Regan, going back more than a decade, in which he used the threat of ballot initiatives to intimidate people.

And companies weren’t his only targets. Unions, too.

Earlier this month, Regan’s colleagues at the SEIU filed complaints claiming that he had tried to intimidate other labor leaders into supporting Proposition 40, the so-called “billionaire tax,” which he is spearheading.

They accused Regan of intimidating labor officials, threatening them with federal investigations and even assaulting one of them — who happened to be female.

An independent investigation concluded that many of the allegations were substantiated.

Regan denied it all, and said that his accusers were just trying to stop the “billionaire tax.”

But the people who spoke out against Regan’s allegedly abusive behavior are labor leaders with ironclad credibility.

One of them, David Huerta, was arrested last year during a protest against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He’s hardly a corporate shill or a MAGA plant.

Yes, some union leaders in California are wary of Proposition 40.

They know that seizing 5% of the wealth of the richest Californians has already led many tech entrepreneurs to leave the state. California might even end up losing money in the long run.

They also know that Regan’s own union stands to benefit directly from Proposition 40, since 90% of the money collected would be earmarked for health care spending.

They have the right to have a different view. That’s what Regan can’t seem to tolerate.

Regan has faced similar accusations before.

In 2016, he was accused of assaulting a process server who came to his home. At the time, his lawyer denied the allegation and claimed the process server had intimidated Regan and his daughter. Ultimately, no charges were filed.

In 2018, Assembly member Richard Bloom, a Democrat from Santa Monica, reported Regan to the state Assembly Rules Committee, saying that the union leader had shoved him outside a restaurant. A union spokesperson who witnessed the confrontation said that Regan never touched Bloom, and no charges were filed.

Regan also denied any wrongdoing. But he clearly likes bare-knuckle tactics of the political sort.

For years, Regan has bossed his way around California, drawing on his training in New York state and his experience in the Rust Belt.

He arrived in California and immediately saw the state’s ballot initiative process as the soft underbelly of democracy.

In election after election, he has organized initiatives on his pet priorities. He doesn’t always win them. But he has turned ballot initiatives into weapons to increase the political power of his union — regardless of the consequences.

The lawsuit by the community health clinics lays it all out, chapter and verse.

Regan’s tactics have ordinary Californians feeling powerless, at the mercy of a powerful union bureaucracy that has become a law unto itself.

Yes, there is a Big Tech oligarchy. There is also a Big Labor oligarchy. And Dave Regan has been using Proposition 40 as his power play among the union elites.

But even the unions have had enough. Union leaders don’t like being bossed around by Dave Regan any more than business owners or health clinics do.

The accusations against Regan are serious enough to derail Proposition 40.

No one should vote for a ballot initiative that depends on the kinds of thuggish tactics that Regan is alleged to have used.

It’s time to stand up to Dave Regan, and deal Proposition 40 the defeat it deserves.

Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post.