Chaos. Fraud. Child trafficking. Gender extremism. Higher costs for you. Empty Suit Becerra stood by and did nothing. He enabled it all.
Susan Rice called him “bitch-ass” and an “idiot.” Nancy Pelosi told Biden not to put him in the Cabinet. Obama's speechwriter said "nobody in the administration has anything good to say about him." Former Biden official Xochitl Hinojosa said he was not an effective HHS secretary. “I do not think he is qualified to be the governor,” a former colleague said. “I don’t think he’s qualified to be the boss of anything.” Here's what happened on his watch.
As HHS Secretary, Becerra pushed migrant kids out of shelters faster. His department dismantled sponsor-screening safeguards meant to protect them. Children were sent to abusive sponsors, including alleged child sex traffickers. HHS inspectors found that guidance to speed releases removed safeguards, with gaps in safety checks and follow-up.
While Becerra was AG, California passed SB 145, ending automatic sex-offender registration for adults convicted of sex acts involving minors when the age gap was no more than ten years. Becerra did nothing about it. His DOJ sent courts, prosecutors and police instructions on applying the law.
AB 3234 lowered "elderly parole" to age 50 after 20 years served. Prosecutors, police chiefs, crime victims and Mothers Against Drunk Driving all opposed it. This year, David Funston, convicted in 1999 of 16 counts of kidnapping and molesting children, was granted release under it. At his hearing he admitted he is still attracted to female children. Governor Newsom said the 2020 law tied his hands. Becerra, the state's top law enforcement officer never said a word.
SB 1437 rolled back the felony murder rule and made it retroactive, so convicted killers could apply to get out. Forty-two district attorneys urged a veto. Becerra went to court to defend it, and said he was proud to.
SB 132 lets inmates transfer prisons based on gender identity. A woman at the Central California Women's Facility says she was sexually assaulted by a biological male transferred under the law. As AG, Becerra did nothing about it.
AB 2119 added access to covered gender-affirming health and mental health care to the rights of children in foster care. As state AG, Becerra just went along with it.
The EDD pandemic fraud scandal was the worst in California history. Over $30 billion stolen. Every small business in California is still paying the price, in FUTA taxes. As the fraud scandal exploded, county DAs formed their own statewide task force and wrote to Newsom and Becerra asking for state help. But Becerra did not lift a finger to help. Prosecutors later said Becerra failed to take leadership.
The Medicaid fraud scandal is the worst in U.S history. Over a hundred billion dollars stolen. This was driven by Becerra when he was HHS Secretary. He shut down the fraud prevention unit at HHS, moving most of the program integrity staff out of fraud prevention. He changed the HHS policy to “pay and chase”: pay first, then try to recover improper payments after the money was gone. He pushed Medicaid expansion at all costs, the main driver of fraud.
Becerra pushed to increase Medicaid and CHIP enrollment. ACA marketplace sign-ups also more than doubled on his watch, reaching 24.2 million. GAO investigators were able to get subsidized ACA coverage using fake identities. The Washington Post editorial board said the surge in zero-premium ACA plans without enough checks helped fuel fraud.
In 2017, Sacramento hiked the gas tax 12 cents a gallon, diesel 20 cents, and jacked up your car registration by up to $175 a year. About $300 more per driver, every year, and it rises automatically with inflation. Californians gathered enough signatures to repeal it. As state AG, Xavier Becerra wrote the ballot title. He called it "Eliminates certain road repair and transportation funding." The words "gas tax" never appeared. A judge ruled it misleading. Voters who supported repeal 50 to 46 when asked plainly dropped to 39% when they read Becerra's version. He didn't win the argument. He rigged the question.
That same year, Sacramento extended cap-and-trade to 2030 by exactly one vote in each house. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst estimated it could add 63 cents a gallon in 2021, rising to 73 cents by 2031. Stacked on the gas tax, that's up to a dollar a gallon in higher gas prices by 2031. State AG Xavier Becerra never said a word, never lifted a finger to stop or slow down his friends in the legislature
In 2018, Sacramento mandated 60% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% by 2045. The result: residential electricity rates rose about 47% from 2019 through 2023, against 18% inflation, and Californians now pay the second-highest rates in the nation, behind only Hawaii. The Legislative Analyst says the state's greenhouse gas targets and renewable mandate have increased costs for ratepayers. The average PG&E customer now pays about $300 a month, up from $179 in 2020. What did Becerra do about it when he was in Sacramento? Nothing. As usual, he was just a bystander.
In May 2018, California became the first state in the nation to require solar panels on every new home. The state's own estimate: $9,500 more per house, roughly $40 a month on your mortgage, for 30 years. Sacramento's answer to the most expensive housing in America was to make it more expensive. Becerra did nothing to try and keep housing costs down - in fact he enabled massive cost increases imposed by Sacramento.
In 2018, Sacramento set a permanent indoor water standard of 55 gallons per person per day, dropping to 50 in 2030. Water agencies that miss their targets face fines of up to $1,000 a day, or $10,000 a day in a drought. Guess who pays the water agency's fines? You do, in your water bill. What did Becerra do as AG? Nothing.
On Becerra's watch, the business exodus from California began. Between 2018 and 2021, 352 companies moved their headquarters out of California, including eleven Fortune 1000 companies. McKesson, Charles Schwab, HPE and Oracle all left on Becerra's watch. Chuck Schwab said it plainly: the costs of doing business here are so much higher than elsewhere.
The Trump administration moved to allow more water to be pumped from the Delta through the Central Valley water projects. Becerra sued and got a court order pausing the increased pumping. He said he was protecting fish. Farmers are still waiting for water.
“I do not think he is qualified to be the governor,” a former colleague said. “I don’t think he’s qualified to be the boss of anything.”
Susan Rice reportedly called him “bitch-ass” and an “idiot,” and passed Mayorkas a note saying, “Don't save him.”
Kamala Harris told him, “It's good of you to do your job.” Biden reportedly asked, “Who am I going to fire in this meeting?”
Pelosi reportedly warned a Biden aide, “You should know who you're hiring.”
Former Biden officials called him “asleep at the wheel” and said running a huge agency was “not his skill set.”
Xochitl Hinojosa, who worked with him in the Biden administration: “He was not an effective HHS secretary. And if you ask any cabinet secretary, they would tell you the same thing.”
“In moments of real challenge, that's kind of when you mark: Are you able to step up? He did not have the grasp of the agency or the role that I think you want in an executive,” said a former White House official under then-President Joe Biden who worked closely with matters involving the Department of Health and Human Services.
“HHS is one of the most challenging bureaucracies because it's so huge, and it has all of these independent agencies as part of it that you have to make sure that an executive-style person is in charge and who is able to manage that,” continued the former official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “And he did not have the capabilities to do that.”
Jon Favreau, co-host of Pod Save America: “I don't feel confident giving the top job to someone who's had 35 years in elected office, to prove himself, but has received mainly bad reviews from his colleagues.”
Favreau also noted that “nobody in the administration has anything good to say about him.”