It's a hollow gesture to pass Prop 36 and not provide the funding for mental health services, drug addiction services.

Because essentially what you're saying is you can incarcerate all these folks.

No.

Californians are done with just putting people away behind bars.

Cause they know they're eventually gonna get out, most of them.

And so we'd rather have folks who are rehabilitated or who are provided the services they need to stand up again.

And that's what Prop 36 said.

And so absolutely fund it.

Yeah.

And if you don't, you don't find the money.

Let's find the money.

If that means we have to raise more money, revenue, then let's raise revenue.

Hey everyone from KQED in San Francisco.

This is Political Breakdown.

I'm Scott Shafer.

Today on the Breakdown, when Xavier Becerra jumped into the race for governor, he called it a break glass moment with California and the nation facing threats from the Trump administration over policies, federal funding, even free and fair elections.

Becerra is a native of Sacramento, raised in a working class family.

He attended Stanford Law School later winning an assembly seat from Los Angeles before getting elected to represent LA in Congress.

Rising to chair the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

He was named Attorney General by then Governor Jerry Brown, when AG Kamala Harris got elected to the US Senate.

And in 2021, join the Biden administration as Health and Human Services secretary, the first Latino to hold both of those positions.

Now he's hoping to make history again in his run for governor.

Xavier Becerra, welcome back to Political Breakdown.

Scott, great to be with you.

Well, we're talking to all the candidates for governor, and we start with the same question.

So I'm gonna ask you, who are you politically and what is your vision for California Politically?

Well, I'm the same person.

I, I am personally, I'm the son of immigrants.

I have an experience of someone watching two hardworking individuals who never had a chance to go to college, who worked very hard, made very little, but somehow made it possible for their four kids to achieve things they never got to see.

I am politically the son of those hardworking parents who recognizes that I have to open the same doors for that next generation of kids so that the next generation of construction workers and clerical workers who are married together will have the chance to do what my parents did, send the, their four kids to college or the military, actually buy a house.

And then when it came time to retire, not have to think about going to Idaho or Arizona, but stay here in California.

Yeah.

Your mom was born in Mexico.

Your dad was born in the US but moved to Tijuana.

Grew up south of the border, right?

Yes.

Yes.

What did they expect of you and your siblings growing up?

Nothing but hard work.

They just said, you're gonna prove yourself by your work and so just do hard work and that'll pay off.

And they were saying that because that was their experience.

They just worked hard and never got a whole lot.

But they got a place to live and they got a place for their kids to, to prosper.

So they weren't expecting a whole lot.

They couldn't tell us what we could grow to do because they never got to experience so many things.

But they knew that if we worked hard, we'd have a chance in America.

You had three have three, three sisters and, you know, you grew up in a, I think a pretty small apartment.

What was that dynamic like with you and your siblings?

Like who ruled the roost?

So I was a third of four kids, three sisters In a Latino home, often times the male child gets a lot of preference.

It used to be the case, maybe not so much anymore.

Fortunately I have three daughters and didn't have to worry about that.

We loved them all equally.

And they're all phenomenal.

But, you know, it's one of those things where we were a close-knit family.

We did a lot of stuff together.

cause we didn't have a lot of money to do it elsewhere.

And you just grow up around each other and you grow up weekends, you're spending your time with your cousins at your grandparents' house.

And it's a great childhood.

Now that I think about it, we were latchkey kids when we'd come home from school.

Mom and dad were not there because they were both working, but they didn't have money to pay for childcare.

Who has money to pay for childcare today?

And so you, you, you bring with you a lot of experiences.

So when you raise the question, who am I politically, I really am the person I grew up.

I, I lived in my politics so much of what I grew up with.

Three daughters, three sisters, your mom, your wife.

What have you learned from all those women in your life that you apply well to life, but also to your politics?

And you know, it's interesting because I've learned stability, honesty.

And I'd say it's a humility, but it's not a humility that you're shy.

It's a, you understand that life has never been as fulfilling for you and you have to go out and make it happen.

And for so many women who've been so talented and always been told, you're, you gotta wait, you gotta do it second, they've learned to persevere, to be thoughtful and to recognize my time will come.

And it sure helps to be surrounded by women.

Most of my staff where I've worked, have also been female.

And I, I think it's a, a very sobering and edifying experience to, to get to see how the other half of the world really can not just function, but ultimately start to rule.

You, you know, are Catholic, you were raised Catholic, you are a supporter of abortion rights.

And I'm wondering how, how does all that, the family background, the culture, the religion, the daughters, the sisters, your wife, I mean, how does that all come out when you think about things like abortion?

Ah, that's a great question because raised Catholic and my mom still prays the rosary every day.

The sanctity of life is something that's really ingrained in you.

Then you realize that for so many Latinas that pregnancy changes their life experience, their opportunity.

And in so many ways, so many of the women who re receive abortions are Catholic Latinas.

And many of them never get the abortion.

And they have wonderful families.

Some of them end up not getting to fulfill their wish of going to college and all the rest.

But what you do learn is that at the end of the day, it's that pragmatic part.

It's the thoughtful part.

It's that humble part of being a woman with those experience that helps drive that.

So my wife, who's an obstetrician gynecologist, a high risk obstetrician gynecologist, and a a and a adamant defender of a woman's right to make a decision with her body and who's Catholic, recognizes that if you trust a woman, she's gonna make the right decision with regard to that pregnancy.

You don't have to worry about politics and you don't have to worry about men.

Let that woman make the decision.

You went to Stanford undergrad and then went to Stanford Law School.

That is a long distance from where your parents came from.

Did they push you in that direction?

Did they want you to go to college?

Did they think of you as being, you know, a lawyer, you know, a attorney general, a health secretary?

You know, Scott, quick story.

When I graduated from Stanford undergrad, my parents finally revealed to me this notion they had, they said, you know, we didn't want to tell you this before you'd graduated, but when you started work, I started working in construction with my father at an early age.

And they said, we were so afraid when you started working construction that you would be so enticed by the high wages of working as a laborer in construction, that you would never go on to college.

Now you have to recognize that laborers in construction don't make a ton of money.

But for my mom and dad, union wages, that was good money.

And so they were concerned that with that good money, I'd say, hey, I don't need college.

I, I can make it, make it go it the way it is.

That was never a thought of my mind, but for them, how, what could they expect from me?

What were, what were their desires from me?

They just wanted me to get ahead and however that would be, they were fine with it.

All right.

We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back more with gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, you're listening to Political Breakdown from KQED news.

And welcome back to Political Breakdown.

I'm Scott Shafer.

Today we're continuing our series of conversations with the candidates running for Governor of California.

Today It's Xavier Becerra, state Attorney General, former Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Biden Administration.

Some of the many jobs he's had in a long career in public service.

Let's talk about how you got into public service.

You graduated law school, went back east for a while, came back, worked for John Van de Kamp, who I think was Attorney General.

Yes.

At the time.

And then you went to work for Art Torres, who was in the assembly or in the legislature.

Legislature.

And then you ran for assembly from Los Angeles.

So how did you make make that decision to run for office?

Right after undergraduate studies, I went to work in the state Capitol as a fellow, a Senate fellow.

And so I had the experience working in the state Capitol, enjoyed the policy work, went off to law school, went on to work in the Attorney General's office.

And that policy work that I had done and working for a state legislator gave me a chance to meet a lot of folks in the Los Angeles area who, after I had worked for the Attorney General's office for about four years, came to me and said, Xavier, you, you never indicated it, but if you're interested in running for office, we'd love to support you.

And I had really not given it much thought, but when they posed it and said they'd help out, I, I said, well, let, let's try it.

And it worked.

Yeah, it worked for a long time.

It did.

You were, you were in the assembly only two years, then you ran for Congress and you were there for like a quarter of a century.

24 years.

Yeah, 24 years.

Chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and then you became Attorney General and you sued the Trump administration more than a hundred times.

I know you had some wins.

Is there one or two that really stand out for you that you think were particularly important or satisfying?

Yeah, and Scott, I gotta correct you.

I had, I had more than just some wins.

I had almost all wins.

- Was it like 90% or so?

It was, it was up there, yeah.

It was really high.

And I mean, there were some significant wins, but what, what do I remember most?

Which are the wins that I, I really appreciate being able to talk about.

Well, today there are, the Affordable Care Act covers some 40 plus million Americans, and it covers even more Americans, if you wanna talk about those who have a pre-existing condition.

But they have their own insurance.

Pre-existing conditions are no longer allowable under federal law.

So you cannot, as a insurance company, discriminate against an American who has a pre-existing health condition and deny them health insurance coverage.

And so the ACA I was the Attorney General who took that case, defended the ACA against the Trump administration all the way to the Supreme Court and won the DACA program for Dreamers in, in America.

And California has more dreamers than any other state.

These are kids who know, they're no longer kids, but were brought to the US illegally by their parents when they were kids.

And are, had some protections under daca.

That's right.

The DACA program created under the Obama administration.

Trump tried to get rid of the program, the DACA program, and most people didn't think I could win because that was an executive order by President Obama.

And so any president can take down an executive order, but I, I still sued claiming that the way Trump was doing it was not legitimate.

And we went to the Supreme Court and I beat him again.

And so those are two major victories.

But the clean car standards that allow California to have a higher standard when it comes to vehicle emissions, we protected that healthcare access, reproductive care.

We protected that.

ICE intrusion forcing the state and our local law enforcement agencies to do ICE raids with ICE.

We stopped them from forcing us to do that.

I can go on.

That's a long list.

Yeah.

Long, long list.

Yeah.

Long list.

Fast forward a little bit.

You become Health Secretary narrowly confirmed by the Senate.

I think it was 50 49.

Yeah.

I dunno if you needed the vice President to put her thumb on the scale for that one.

I didn't.

I didn't in that case.

No.

Yeah.

Did you, you know, a lot of people thought, oh, Becerra would be, he was the Attorney General, he'd be a good Attorney General in the Biden administration.

Did you ever think that that was a better spot for you than Health Secretary?

Well, honestly, I had mentioned to the Biden team after the election, before he had become president, that they'd need and worry about asking me about something in the cabinet unless it was Attorney General.

I was AG in California, I was having a really successful career as AG and I didn't expect that I would leave unless I saw something like US Attorney General in the offering.

And so I said, no, so don't worry about coming to me.

But when they offered a chance for me to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, having done so much work in Congress on healthcare, having as the Attorney General done so much work, reproductive health, ACA as a AG on health, I, I couldn't just look away and recognizing this is where people are amazed.

The Department of Health and Human Services is massive.

It is the largest public health enterprise in the world.

It has a budget bigger than the Department of Defense.

In fact, it has a budget bigger than the Department of Defense and the state of California combined.

You do so much Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, NIH, FDA, CDC, So there's so much you do.

I said to myself, what an opportunity.

And I've always said, if I can make a bigger difference, that's where I'll be.

Yeah.

You of course, were a health secretary during the COVID Pandemic.

There were criticisms from some that you were too low profile, that you were like, where's Becerra?

Where's the Health Secretary?

It was always Fauci Anthony Fauci.

Yeah.

You know, what, what do you say to those critics?

- Well, the, the, how should I put this?

The launch and the directive for COVID, and remember when President Biden got the keys to the White House from President Trump on January, was it 21st?

2021, more than 4,100 Americans died that day alone.

It was, we were in a real crisis.

And so the Trump administration left us a mess.

The Biden administration before being sworn in, was already on the job.

And so they had assembled a team working out of the White House.

So when I came in, in March of 2021, there was already a full fledged team working with our HHS personnel at the White House.

And much of the decision making, as you would assume was gonna be done at the White House for the biggest peril that our country had faced in what, a hundred years Were you at the White House for those meetings in those decisions?

Once I, once I became secretary, I was included, I was part of those meetings, obviously, because most of the team working on this stuff, Dr.

Dr.

Fauci and the rest came out of HHS.

But clearly the White House was really working with the president to make sure where we went.

We executed, like, let's put it this way, HHS, I as secretary.

We executed the Biden administration policy on COVID at eventually by the end of 2021, we migrated over the entire operation, which was at the Department of Defense over to the Department of Health and Human Services.

You know, pivoting to what you're running for now, governor, you know, a lot of people seem to want in this moment, Democrats a fighter, somebody who is high profile, attacking the president, suing the president, going on social media, memes with the, you know, attacking the president.

But, you know, governor Newsom is doing those things, but he is also getting pushback from people like Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose.

What are, you're not like a bomb thrower, you're not a firebrand, you're not somebody who has a huge following on social media.

Do you think that is something that you, you and your campaign lack?

No doubt I'm gonna have to do more social media, because that is the principle way to communicate today with so many people, including voters.

And it's a lot less expensive than trying to do it simply through the TV networks and cable news.

Those are the old fashioned ways.

So absolutely, you gotta do more of that.

But you're right.

I, I am not the shiny object.

I am not the flame thrower.

You don't have a whiteboard.

I, what I do is I get my work.

You know, I go back to what I said about my parents.

They just wanted me to get my work done.

Let your your, let your work product prove who you are.

And that's what I've always done, is I've always let my work product prove who I am.

And while the White House was calling so many of the shots on COVID, we were the ones at HHS who were executing.

Yeah.

If you're just joining us, you're listening to Political Breakdown.

I'm Scott Shafer.

We're talking with former Attorney General, former Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, one of the many Democrats running for Governor of California.

Voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 36, I think you supported it.

Yes, Yes.

Yeah.

It, among other things, you know, mandates drug treatment for some offenders, but there really aren't enough treatment beds.

There wasn't any funding in the ballot measure.

Governor Newsom did not support Prop 36 and has not really funded it.

What would you as governor do in terms of adding funds or changing the way the state approaches what the voters wanted done?

You gotta fund it.

I mean the, the, the people California spoke and they're right.

It's a hollow gesture to pass Prop 36 and not provide the funding for mental health services, drug addiction services.

Because essentially what you're saying is you're gonna incarcerate all these folks.

No, Californians are done with just putting people away behind bars.

Cause they know they're eventually gonna get out, most of them.

And so we'd rather have folks who are rehabilitated or who are provided the services, they need to stand up again.

And that's what Prop 36 said.

And so absolutely fund it.

Yeah.

And if you don't, you don't find the money.

Let's find the money.

If that means we have to raise more money, revenue, then let's raise revenue.

Well, let me ask you about that.

The LAO, the legislative analyst office says, we're facing a $18 billion shortfall in the budget.

Governor Newsom says, no, no, no, it's 3 billion.

There's always disagreements.

But that's a pretty big disagreement.

Yeah.

Six times larger.

So where would the revenue come from?

There's a, you know, the one idea is let's tax billionaires assets, 5% one time tax to fund healthcare, backfill some of these cuts the Trump administration has made.

Do you support that?

And if not, why?

And where would the revenue additionally come from?

Taxation policy should not be a one-time deal.

And so the initiative that's on the ballot, I think rightfully targets the mega wealthy, the billionaires who have made a killing in California and haven't done their fair share.

But you don't need tax policy policy to be a one-time shot because you need consistent, predictable revenue in order to manage a budget the size of the state of California.

And so that's not tax policy.

I'm saying that to you, not just because I don't believe that's the best way to do policy.

I'm saying it to you because I was for 20 years on the Ways and Means committee in Congress, a tax policy writer.

The Ways and Means committee does all the tax policy in the House of Representatives.

Tax policy has to be predictable.

It has to be stable.

And it has to understand that it's interconnected with everything that goes on.

And so we will have revenue, we will raise the revenue we need, but we'll do it in a predictable, stable fashion.

Like where, where would you, how would you get more revenue in this particular environment?

Well, I would say that baseline way to, to explain it to average California is to say if you are mega wealthy and you're paying at tax rates that are lower than a nurse, a teacher, a firefighter, a police officer, then you're gonna end up paying more when I'm governor because it's not Fair.

How, how So principally it would be looking at some of the passive income, some of the investment income where, which is where so many wealthy individuals make so much money and pay very low tax rates for that investment income.

Isn't that better dealt with federally?

Well the federal government could deal with it, but the feds are gonna keep that money that they raise through federal taxation.

This is for state and we, we can do something very similar.

Yeah, high speed rail.

Yeah.

It's been supported by, you know, governors going back to Arnold Schwartzenegger, Jerry Brown.

It seemed like maybe Newsom was gonna pull the plug, but he didn't.

What's your position?

Do we need to keep, you know, keep on that track going, going in the same direction we're in right now?

Yeah.

I mean, what is it that Japan, China Europe, everybody can build high speed rail, but the fourth largest economy in the world, California can't, no, it's, that's not the problem.

High speed rail makes sense.

Talk to all those countries and all those communities that get to move around at fast speed on a train rather than have to always worry about getting on a plane.

It absolutely works.

It doesn't work though.

If you launch a project, you don't have the full support of communities that are gonna be impacted.

And the way those communities express that is by going to court and stopping your project over and over and over again.

Litigation is expensive.

Delays are expensive.

And that's what we've encountered.

So when I become governor, we're gonna get rid of all these delays in the litigation.

I'll sit everybody down who's got some concerns and we will resolve it.

But we're gonna build high-speed rail.

You gonna make 'em an offer they can't refuse.

Essentially, yeah.

You know that, look, I found this in so many cases dealing with COVID, trying to get 50 states to be on one, one on one track with us on COVID it's tough.

'cause remember the federal government doesn't run healthcare.

States do.

I had to get 50 states to be on the same page when it came to distribution of vaccines, distribution of paxlovid and all the treatments.

It's tough, but you gotta sit everybody down and you don't do it mid-track.

You do it at the beginning before you take off.

Yeah.

California has a sanctuary policy.

A lot of local governments have their own sanctuary policies.

And what it is of course, is it, it limits the ways in which law enforcement can cooperate with federal law, federal immigration officials and policy, ICE and so forth.

It doesn't mean they can't talk, it doesn't mean that, you know, a criminal getting out of prison can't be handed over or told.

You know?

That's right.

So, but do you see any changes?

'cause it's obviously sanctuary policies generally are being targeted by the Trump administration.

Yep.

They're trying to limit federal funding to states and local governments over that policy.

It's say, being litigated in the courts.

But do you, would you as governor, like to see any changes in any direction on California's policies with regard to sanctuary?

Well, Scott, don't forget I litigated those policies.

SB 54, the Values Act.

We defended that in court against the Trump administration the first time that they came after us because of SB 54.

And we beat him back.

It is constitutional.

The state has a right to police do policing authority, not the federal government.

Federal government has a right to do immigration enforcement, but they don't have a right to do public safety.

And what you find is that this ICE is doing far more than just trying to go after somebody for immigration law violations.

It's become clear.

That's why so, so many Americans have now died at the hands of ICE.

We will defend it, we will win.

Because of the Constitution.

ICE is not a policing authority in the state of California.

They are an immigration enforcement authority and they must limit themselves to that.

If they don't have a warrant, they don't have a basis to be going all over the place in California and just tracking down folks or stopping them.

We've seen a lot of companies, some of them based in California, some of them used to be based in California, like Palantir, doing major contracts with the federal government with ICE Apple, you know, has limited or restricted ban, essentially an app that allows local communities to see where ICE is operating.

You know, some people are saying, we shouldn't take any money running if you're running for office, you shouldn't take money from these companies.

What's your take on that idea that like, maybe you shouldn't take money from companies that are based in California or elsewhere that are cooperating with ICE or some other policies in the Trump administration that are anathema to what California stands for?

Free Country Democracy.

If that's what you think is the best way that you can leverage to stop an entity, a company from doing things that you think harm your neighbors or your state, go to it.

I have no problems with that.

You have every right to say that you don't have the the right to tell a company not to operate in California.

But you could say to somebody, Hey, you should boycott that company because this is the way it operates.

Would you not take money from those companies and pay money?

I'm, I'm, I'm not going out there to search for their money.

I'm not looking for their money.

Would you, if they handed you a check, would you take it?

I doubt they're gonna hand me a check.

I was one of the guys that was suing on some of these activities.

Fair enough.

Elections, the New York Times recently ran an editorial criticizing California for its slow counting of ballots.

There are a lot of reasons for that.

We allow ballots to come in a week after, if as long as they're postmarked by election day.

We're slow and slower than the rest of the country.

And it, you know, the policies were intended to increase voter participation.

That hasn't happened really either.

Do you support - you're smiling - do you support any changes to election law in California?

What counts is that the votes are counted and they're counted right.

We want everyone to vote.

And if that means that we're getting ballots that are coming in postmark timely, but coming in the day after or a few days after, so be it.

We want your vote to count.

If you're a, a soldier working abroad and you barely get your ballot in by postmarked in time, why don't, why would I try to keep your vote from counting?

No, absolutely.

So long as it's counted and it's counted right.

Amen.

Yeah.

Sacramento was rocked months ago by some FBI investigations and indictments of several top insiders and state government, including who had been your chief of staff.

Yeah.

A top aid for you.

They apparently siphoned off about $225,000 from your campaign account, sent it to some of their co-conspirators.

Allegedly, neither you nor Governor Newsom, who one of the people worked for as well have been charged with anything.

But what was your reaction to that?

Because this is somebody you worked with really closely.

Yeah.

And gut punch, as I said, never expected it.

But here's the thing, you know, whether it's as AG or Secretary of Health Human Services or it's governor, what matters isn't how close you are to someone or how long you work with someone.

The law is the law and no one is above the law.

And so Did you feel like it was a betrayal?

It was something I didn't expect to see.

And what I will say is that having served as AG, the authorities have a, a obligation to investigate that thoroughly and then come to some conclusion and every chip fall where they may and, at that point, for me, it was one of those things where it's not what you expect, but again, you keep moving forward.

Quick question before we end.

We're asking all the candidates is where do you take an out of state friend to give them a taste of California?

My mom's house.

Do you call her and say, mom, we're coming over.

What does she make?

Does she have a specialty?

Oh gosh.

You want some Chile verde?

Would you like some barbacoa?

Would you like she makes a mean fried chicken.

You know, it's my mom's house.

My, my wife's pretty good too, although it's a little healthier than my mom.

But yeah, if I want someone to eat some really good California cooking my mom's house.

All right.

When we come, when are we going over?

I mean it.

Sounds good to me.

Xavier Becerra, thank you so much for joining us today.

Amen.

Thanks, Scott.

Former Attorney General, former Health Secretary, running for governor of California.

That is a wrap for Thursday, February 26th.

Political Breakdown is a production of KQED.

Our engineer today is Jean Marie.

Our producers are Emiko Oda and Izzy Bloom.

Our team includes Matt Morales, Alex Tran, Vivian Morales, and Jim McKay.

I'm Scott Shafer.

We'll see you next time.