Attorney General Applicant

Xavier Becerra

Currently: California Attorney General
Party
Democrat

When Xavier Becerra was appointed California’s top law enforcement officer in January 2017, he came to Sacramento as an accomplished congressman with a reputation as a dealmaker and a coalition builder. But with dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration now under his belt, he’s shown voters that he can be a fighter too.

His father was a construction worker from Sacramento and his mother emigrated from Mexico speaking no English. Becerra was a member of his high school’s conflict resolution club. He took those same skills to Stanford, where he eventually got a law degree, and then to the United States Congress, where he served for 12 terms and became one of the chamber’s top-ranking Democrats.

Interests:

  • Protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants
  • The 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
  • Suing the Trump administration

Letters of Recommendation:

  • California Democratic Party
  • Jerry Brown
  • Dolores Huerta
  • Equality California
  • Sierra Club California

Contact Information:

XavierBecerra.com   @XavierBecerra

The Resume of Xavier Becerra

Attorney General, 2017 – Present

  • Sued the Trump administration 40 times
  • Stepped in to oversee the investigation into the Sacramento Police shooting of Stephon Clark
  • Established a Bureau of Environmental Justice to focus on anti-pollution law enforcement in low-income communities

Member of Congress (Los Angeles), 1993 – 2017

  • Served as vice chairman of the Democratic House caucus

California State Assembly Member, 1990 – 1992

California Deputy Attorney General, 1987 – 1990

Attorney General, 2017 – Present

  • Sued the Trump administration 40 times
  • Stepped in to oversee the investigation into the Sacramento Police shooting of Stephon Clark
  • Established a Bureau of Environmental Justice to focus on anti-pollution law enforcement in low-income communities

 

We’re not looking to pick a fight, but we’re ready for one.

Videos

See for yourself

Applicant's Stances

Learn about Xavier Becerra's Stances

The Issues
  • Justice
Questions
Responses
California has filed more than 40 lawsuits against the federal government since Donald Trump became president. Has California sued the Trump administration too much?
No. Becerra is proud of his record suing the Trump Administration over the environment, health care and immigration: “Which one of those lawsuits would you like me not to do? Because all of them are still standing, so none of them were frivolous… I feel confident that most people would look at the 40-plus lawsuits and say ‘Thank you for standing up for California.’”
High-profile police shootings have led some activists to call for changes to state law, but police reject many of the ideas as compromises to their safety. Would you embrace any policies intended to create more accountability when police use force on civilians?
Unclear. Becerra says he wants to see what comes back from reviews under way of procedures in the San Francisco and Sacramento police departments, and that he doesn’t want too many changes heaped on police all at once. He declined to take a position on two proposals legislators shelved this year—one to create a unit in the attorney general’s office to investigate shootings by local police departments, and another to lower the legal standard for justifying police use-of-force. “It’s important that we assess where we’re going in policing. What are the best practices? What are the things that can avoid both a shooting by an officer, and a shooting of an officer?”
California’s crime rate is down since the 1980s but up slightly in the last few years. Does this uptick have anything to do with recent changes meant to reduce the state prison population and give offenders more chances at parole?
No. Becerra supports policies voters and the Legislature have enacted that have moved some inmates from state prison to local supervision (AB 109), reduced some nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors (Proposition 47) and made it easier for nonviolent offenders to be released on parole (Proposition 57). He says they will help rehabilitate criminals so that they are less likely to reoffend when they get out, and are unrelated to minor fluctuations in crime rates. “It’s hard for me to believe that someone could extrapolate from the last two or three years and say all of a sudden that any crime that’s committed is due to our efforts to try to re-integrate people into society.”
The state Department of Justice is responsible for taking firearms from felons, people who are mentally incompetent and others prohibited by law from owning them. How’s that going?
Thinks the program is generally working well despite a backlog of roughly 10,000 people who still have guns even though they are prohibited from owning them. He says his department could eliminate the backlog if it got more money to hire more agents. “We keep collecting (the firearms), more than 18,000 in the last five years. But people keep buying them. And people keep losing their right to hold them, and we have to go get them. It is a difficult job. I’ve asked for more resources so I could actually go after the backlog and try to keep pace with the growing numbers of folks.”

Going Deeper