EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Xavier Becerra is running for governor on a record of more of the same: the same policies that have made California less affordable, less accountable, and less functional. After more than three decades in elected office and a stint as Biden’s HHS Secretary, Becerra offers voters no meaningful break from the status quo that has driven up housing costs, left streets unsafe, and eroded public trust.

COST: Becerra has repeatedly failed to articulate any major policy differences from Gavin Newsom. In his first major television interview, he dodged specific questions on affordability and offered only vague promises of better execution. On homelessness, a crisis costing billions, he gave Newsom an A. Californians want change. Becerra is running to continue the current course.

INCOMPETENCE: Becerra’s central argument is experience. Yet former colleagues in the Biden administration described him as unprepared, ineffective, and an embarrassment even in routine presidential briefings. Nancy Pelosi reportedly warned the White House before his appointment: You should know who you’re hiring. A former DOJ communications director stated she did not trust him to lead California because he was not effective in government. Even inside the administration, Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice reportedly called him a ‘bitch-ass’ and an ‘idiot.’

CORRUPTION: Becerra’s political operation has been entangled in a federal fraud scheme involving his own dormant campaign account and his longtime chief of staff, who pleaded guilty. He is also tied to a taxpayer-funded operation that uses government money to run voter contact programs employing canvassers who range from undocumented immigrants to legal permanent residents, then endorses candidates like Becerra through its political arm.

FAILURE: As HHS Secretary, Becerra oversaw a system that rushed unaccompanied migrant children into sponsor placements despite repeated internal warnings about weak vetting and follow-up. Federal inspectors general documented the failures. A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation later revealed children funneled into hazardous labor. Thousands were lost track of. The result was one of the most disturbing scandals of the Biden administration. As Attorney General, he also failed to aggressively tackle the massive EDD unemployment fraud scandal, which involved over $11.4 billion in confirmed fraudulent payments.

Becerra is not offering Californians relief from the policies that have failed them. He is asking to be promoted to continue them.

SECTION 1: COST

More of the Same Policies

California voters are struggling with the highest housing costs in the nation, persistent homelessness, and a cost-of-living crisis that has driven families out of the state. They want change. Xavier Becerra is offering continuity.

In the first major television interview of his gubernatorial campaign, host Elex Michaelson pressed Becerra repeatedly on what he would do differently from Gavin Newsom to address affordability. Becerra had no specific policy answers.

Asked what specific changes he would make, Becerra responded: You need to bring the problem right to the table with the best experts there, you scrub it and then whatever is left, whatever is clean and survives, that’s what you do. When Michaelson followed up asking for a specific policy change, Becerra offered none.

Later, asked how a Becerra administration would differ from Newsom’s, Becerra said only: I’m not going to wait. He repeated the same scrub it answer. Michaelson summarized: So there’s not a specific policy, basically just we’re going to do things differently, we’re going to move, we’re going to do them faster, we’re not going to wait? Becerra did not disagree. He replied: You’ve got to execute. We’ve got to build and we have to execute.

The exchange lasted several minutes. Becerra never identified a major policy break with the administration he seeks to replace. His argument throughout the campaign has been that California’s problems stem from implementation, not from the underlying agenda. He is running not as a reformer but as a more efficient manager of the status quo.

That view was clearest during a gubernatorial debate when candidates were asked to grade Gavin Newsom’s handling of homelessness. Becerra’s answer: A. At a time when visible encampments, open drug use, and street disorder remain defining features of many California communities, and after billions spent with little measurable improvement, Becerra awarded the current governor top marks. Where voters see failure, Becerra sees success worth continuing.

Becerra has presented himself as the candidate of experience. On the central challenges facing California, affordability, housing, homelessness, public safety, that experience has produced no alternative vision. He is asking voters to reward more of the same policies that have made the state less affordable and less livable for working families.

SECTION 2: INCOMPETENCE

What His Own Colleagues Thought of His Leadership

Becerra’s campaign rests on the claim that his long resume, including service as HHS Secretary, demonstrates executive competence. Former colleagues who worked with him in the Biden administration offered a sharply different assessment.

As Becerra prepared to enter the governor’s race, Politico reported that former Biden administration officials reacted with incredulity, mockery and resignation. One former official said Becerra’s candidacy gets the biggest laugh in former Biden staff group chats. Another described his appointment to lead HHS as an unfortunate choice.

One former administration official described Becerra’s briefings with President Biden this way: He would go to brief the president and was not prepared at all, almost to the point where it was an embarrassment.

Former Biden Justice Department communications director Xochitl Hinojosa publicly questioned Becerra’s effectiveness and leadership. She said she did not trust him to lead California and that he was not effective in government.

Reports from inside the administration described repeated frustrations with Becerra during major disputes over immigration, public health, and management of the department.

Perhaps most notable was a warning reportedly delivered by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi before Becerra was selected to lead HHS: You should know who you’re hiring.

Internal criticism went even further. According to Axios reporting cited by the Washington Examiner, former Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice referred to Becerra as a ‘bitch-ass’ and privately called him an ‘idiot.’ The harsh words stemmed from Becerra’s alleged reluctance to secure additional space in child migrant shelters, which contributed to a public relations disaster when images of overcrowded detention centers surfaced. During one meeting with President Biden in which he vented frustrations about Becerra, Rice reportedly slipped a note to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reading ‘Don’t save him.’

These assessments did not come from Republican opponents. They came from people who served alongside Becerra in the same Democratic administration. For a candidate whose central argument is experience, the private verdict from his own side is damning. It reveals not policy disagreements but fundamental questions about preparedness, effectiveness, and capacity to lead at the highest levels of government.

SECTION 3: CORRUPTION

Insider Politics, Influence, and Self-Dealing

Becerra presents himself as a steady public servant. His record shows deep entanglement with California’s political establishment, taxpayer-funded advocacy operations, and networks of influence that blur lines between public resources and partisan power.

Part A: The McCluskey Campaign Fund Scandal

In 2025, federal prosecutors brought charges against several senior California Democratic operatives in a fraud scheme involving Xavier Becerra’s dormant campaign account. Among those charged were Sean McCluskey, Becerra’s longtime chief of staff and one of his closest political advisers, and Dana Williamson, a veteran operative who later became Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff.

Prosecutors alleged that money from Becerra’s campaign account was routed through intermediaries and ultimately used to benefit McCluskey’s household through payments for work that was never performed. McCluskey later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. Williamson also pleaded guilty.

The allegations were notable because the funds originated from Becerra’s own dormant campaign account rather than an outside committee. Court documents and reporting described an arrangement in which McCluskey sought more money while serving as chief of staff. The scheme allegedly continued for years. Because it centered on Becerra’s own account and involved his closest aide, it raised obvious and unanswered questions about oversight and what Becerra knew.

The case generated broader concerns about accountability within Becerra’s political organization and the level of scrutiny he exercised over his own operation.

Part B: Special-Interest Network

Becerra is the candidate of California’s entrenched political and economic interests. He enjoys extensive support from major labor unions and has received significant backing from corporate and special-interest PACs in the current governor’s race.

His endorsements include AFSCME District Council 36, California Professional Firefighters, California State Council of Laborers, IBEW, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, SEIU locals, UFCW Western States Council, and multiple building trades councils. Becerra frequently highlights that he comes from a union household. These relationships reflect the traditional Democratic coalition, but they also tie him to the same interest groups that have shaped California policy for decades.

At the same time, outside spending groups supporting Becerra have drawn funding from major corporations and industry players, including Chevron, McDonald’s, DaVita, California Resources Corp., Meta, Airbnb, and health insurance interests. Reporting documented millions in PAC spending boosting Becerra from groups aligned with real estate, energy, and business interests. Opponents have highlighted these corporate ties as evidence that Becerra represents the status quo rather than a challenge to powerful interests.

Becerra is not running against the system that has governed California. He is running as its preferred successor, supported by both organized labor and significant elements of the corporate establishment that benefit from the current regulatory and political environment.

Part C: CHIRLA – Taxpayer Money Funding Voter Mobilization for Endorsed Candidates

Becerra has been publicly endorsed by the CHIRLA Action Fund, the political arm of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles. CHIRLA itself receives the overwhelming majority of its funding from California taxpayers – $72 million over the last three years, including $25.6 million in 2024 alone, which accounted for 82 percent of its budget.

That taxpayer money supports CHIRLA’s Immigrant Political Power Project, which runs organized voter contact operations. According to CHIRLA’s own materials, these operations use canvassers and phone bankers ranging in status from undocumented immigrants to legal permanent residents, making repeated contacts with community members between four and seven times before election day. The project explicitly aims to build a brand-new voter base engineered from their own efforts to sway state politics.

CHIRLA’s political arm then endorses candidates. Becerra is one of them. In short, California taxpayers are funding an organization that runs voter mobilization using canvassers who can include undocumented immigrants, and that same organization’s political operation turns around and endorses candidates like Xavier Becerra.

There is also significant operational overlap between CHIRLA’s charitable arm and its political arm. The same executive director serves as president and board chair of the Action Fund. The two entities collaborate directly on the voter mobilization project. This arrangement raises serious questions about whether taxpayer dollars are effectively subsidizing political activity and candidate support.

SECTION 4: FAILURE

The Migrant Child Scandal Under Becerra’s HHS

One of the most disturbing failures of the Biden administration occurred under Xavier Becerra’s leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services. As Secretary, Becerra oversaw the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency responsible for housing, vetting sponsors for, and placing unaccompanied migrant children who entered the United States without a parent or guardian.

During the border surge, ORR faced enormous pressure to move children out of federal custody quickly. Becerra’s department prioritized speed. Internal warnings were raised about risks to child safety. Federal watchdogs identified serious weaknesses in sponsor screening, post-placement follow-up, and interagency coordination. Staff expressed concerns that speed was being prioritized over protection. The department accelerated placements anyway.

The consequences were predictable and severe. Children were released faster than the government could effectively monitor them. HHS’s own Inspector General later found that ORR did not always conduct basic sponsor safety checks, did not always obtain legible sponsor documents, and did not consistently complete required post-release follow-up calls on time. The DHS Inspector General separately warned that ICE had no assurance that children were safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor after release.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigation documented the human cost. Migrant children, many of whom had passed through the federal system overseen by Becerra’s department, were found working in factories, slaughterhouses, construction, and other hazardous jobs prohibited under child labor laws. Thousands of children were lost track of. The system designed to protect them instead exposed many to exploitation.

This was not an abstract bureaucratic failure. It was a foreseeable result of political decisions made at the highest levels of the department Becerra led. When serious warnings about risks to vulnerable children were raised, the response was to push harder rather than to pause and strengthen safeguards. That is a failure of leadership with lasting human consequences.

Failure to Address EDD Fraud as Attorney General

As California Attorney General, Becerra also failed to mount an aggressive response to the massive EDD unemployment fraud scandal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Congressional investigations and state audits revealed over $11.4 billion in confirmed fraudulent unemployment payments, with total fraud estimates reaching $20 billion or higher according to multiple analyses. Despite repeated federal warnings about vulnerabilities in the system, Becerra’s office pursued limited high-profile prosecutions and recoveries relative to the scale of the losses. Critics highlighted that Becerra instead devoted significant attention and resources to high-profile lawsuits against the Trump administration on national policy issues, while core state-level problems like fraud and crime in California received less focus.

CONCLUSION

Xavier Becerra is asking Californians for a promotion after a career defined by continuity with the policies and political arrangements that have produced the state’s current challenges.

He has no plan to depart from Gavin Newsom’s agenda on the issues that matter most to voters struggling with affordability and quality of life. Even his former colleagues in the Biden administration questioned his effectiveness and preparedness, with some using extraordinarily harsh private language. His political operation has been touched by federal fraud charges involving his closest aide and his own campaign funds. He is connected to networks that include a taxpayer-funded organization running voter mobilization with canvassers who can include undocumented immigrants, while its political arm endorses him. And under his watch at HHS, a system meant to protect unaccompanied children failed them, with documented consequences including child labor exploitation. As Attorney General, he similarly failed to confront the enormous EDD fraud scandal while prioritizing other battles.

Becerra is not running to fix what is broken in California. He is running to manage it. The record shows four consistent themes: Cost. Incompetence. Corruption. Failure. More of the same is exactly what California cannot afford.

Sources

Court filings and plea agreements in the McCluskey/Williamson fraud case; Politico reporting on Biden administration internal views; Axios reporting (cited in Washington Examiner) on Susan Rice’s comments; direct quotes from Elex Michaelson interview and gubernatorial debate; HHS and DHS Inspector General reports; New York Times Pulitzer-winning investigation; Congressional letters and audits on EDD fraud ($11.4B+ confirmed fraudulent); CHIRLA Form 990 filings, Immigrant Political Power Project materials, and NBC News reporting; CalMatters reporting on campaign spending and special-interest backing; Becerra campaign endorsements page and public statements; ProPublica nonprofit profiles. All claims are grounded in primary documents, official reports, or direct quotations from credible reporting.