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Rafael Perez: As a candidate for governor, Xavier Becerra fails on too many fronts

April 9, 2026

Continuing our series where we scrutinize the worthiness of candidates running for office in California, I met over video call with Democrat Xavier Becerra, who is running for governor.

Becerra was the attorney general of California from 2017 to 2021 and the Secretary of Health and Human Services under Joe Biden from 2021 to 2025. Before that, he served in the California State Assembly from 1990 to 1992 and later in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2017.

To start, I noted that Democrats have been in charge of California for decades and that it is in much of the public’s opinion that the state has gotten worse in many respects. I asked Becerra where he thought Democrats had gone wrong and how he would be different. According to Becerra, actually, Democrats have done wonders for Californians with only a few minor indiscretions.

“What I would tell you is that for the most part, Democrats have moved our communities along and helped improve their lives. The fact that today you can make a living wage in many professions where before you were getting paid dirt is a clear sign of that … I will tell you this, where Democrats sometimes I think, miss the boat is when we get ahead of our skis. We try to push an ambitious agenda and forget that we have to have people who can follow us … But otherwise, I would say that what we try to do is bring everyone. We don’t leave people behind.”

I found this a bit confusing given that every campaigning Democrat, including Becerra, is telling us that California is facing a mountain of cataclysms – an affordability crisis, a housing crisis, a homelessness crisis, and numerous other chronic problems – looking at their campaign websites and public statements one would think that California is a living hell.

One of their most favored lines is precisely that too many hardworking Californians can’t make a living wage. I asked Becerra why they were all claiming that they would fix these major issues if Democrats have done such a stellar job.

“So it seems a bit more than, ‘we got a little bit ahead of our skis on some things,’ right?” I asked.

“I would say to you, gas prices are out of control. Democrats didn’t do that,” said Becerra. “You know, when people say, well, you got to get rid of the gas tax. The gas tax hasn’t been the reason why we’re paying six, seven dollars gasoline in parts of California. That has to do totally with what Republican President Donald Trump did.”

Setting aside the fact that Becerra did not address the crises that can’t be attributed to Trump, the current gas tax in California is the highest in the nation at 61 cents per gallon. It is obviously part of the reason why gas is so expensive, in addition to state mandates and regulations.

With respect to the affordability crisis, a housing crisis, a homelessness crisis, the fact that Becerra himself claims that these crises exist but is unwilling to admit the extent of the Democrats’ culpability in creating them suggests that he will be incapable of appropriately diagnosing the causes and addressing them.

We moved on to a highly alarming part of Becerra’s history as an elected official. Back in 2019 when Becerra was the Attorney General of California, a new law, The Right To Know Act, allowed the public to acquire police misconduct records including instances of sexual assault and excessive use of force.

When requested, Becerra declined to provide those records for his Department of Justice and had to be sued. He also threatened criminal convictions for journalists who had acquired records for other law-enforcement agencies, if they did not destroy them. I asked why he fought against the record releases and why he threatened those poor journalists.

“Because there was an ambiguity in the law. So did the records that had to be disclosed, were they from the point that the law was passed … or did records before the law was passed, which would not be released under existing law, would those be included? … We said, we have to try to make sure we’re protecting privacy. You always default on protecting privacy … And so we asked the courts for clarity. So it wasn’t so much that we had to be sued, it’s that there had to be a court decision to clarify, could we release documents which previous to this new law were not disclosable? And once the court answered yes, they could be disclosed, then we disclosed.”

No, after the courts ruled that Becerra had to disclose the records, he appealed the decision trying to get an appeals court to overturn it. Becerra was not merely looking for clarity, he was fighting tooth and nail against transparency and protecting criminal officers.

I asked again about the threats he directed at journalists. According to Becerra, he wasn’t threatening them, he was merely informing them of what the law said.

“That was that whole situation. So I just informed [them], read the law. I’m not threatening to prosecute you. I’m just informing you what the law says. And again, I can understand how some would say, hey, you’re threatening to prosecute me. I just said, here’s what the law says. You read it for yourself and you decide.”

The letter that Becerra sent to the UC Berkeley journalists read as follows: “You are hereby on notice that the unauthorized receipt or possession of a record from the Department’s ACHS or information obtained from such a record is a misdemeanor. If you do not intend to comply with our request, the Department can take legal action to ensure that the spreadsheets are properly deleted and not disseminated.”

Contrary to what Becerra claims, anyone who received that letter would believe that the attorney general was threatening them if they failed to comply. Journalists are immune from prosecution for publishing secret government documents if they did not break the law in obtaining them, which they did not as Becerra admits.

The rest of the interview went no better for Becerra. I asked about his support for rent control and noted the near consensus among economists that they are counterproductive. He failed to provide any insights that would mitigate the concerns with rent stabilization and doubled down on fighting “price-gouging” landlords.

I asked him if he was in favor of modifying Proposition 13 to increase property taxes on businesses, noting that this would likely raise prices and slow economic growth. He ignored the economic fallout and stated that, unlike income taxes, increased property taxes would provide the state with stable revenue.

To summarize, Mr. Becerra sees little problem with how Democrats have ruled California, signaling that his leadership will bring more of the same, he is unresponsive to the possible destructive consequences of his taxation and housing policies, he fought against the public’s effort to not be policed by criminals, and worse still, their right to know that those mischievous officers even exist.

As a candidate, Becerra fails on too many fronts. Californians looking for better governance should look elsewhere.

Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. He is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.

Orange County Register

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Rafael Perez: As a candidate for governor, Xavier Becerra fails on too many fronts

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