Former federal health chief Xavier Becerra announces run for California governor

Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra announced Wednesday that he is running for governor, joining a crowded field of Democrats hoping to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Becerra said he had been pondering running for some time and decided to jump into the race because of his experience fighting President Trump and managing disasters, two traits he believes are crucial for the state’s next leader.

“Watching what’s unfolding before our eyes made it clear this is not a time to sit on the sidelines,” Becerra said in an interview.

He said his experience dealing with natural disasters, notably the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, makes him uniquely suited to navigate the man-made disasters created by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, a top advisor to the president, as they indiscriminately slash essential federal government agencies and services.

“Americans are being punished,” he said, “whether it’s the cancer patients who are no longer going to see that fruitful research completed, whether it is the seniors who live in nursing homes who will not have the inspectors coming by to investigate elder abuse, or whether it’s seeing lead in the toys that our children buy and put in their mouths.”

He said he believes California is at a tipping point, and — in an apparent swipe at the state’s Democratic leadership — needs sensible executive leadership that draws businesses back and makes it easier for wildfire victims in areas such as Pacific Palisades and Altadena to rebuild. Although protecting the environment must remain a priority, laws such as the California Environmental Quality Act, the power of the Coastal Commission and the state’s regulations should be open to review, Becerra said.

The looming question in the race is whether former Vice President Kamala Harris decides to run, a decision she is not expected to make until the summer. If she does enter the contest, the move is expected to winnow the field because of her national profile, fundraising ability and her multiple successful statewide campaigns.

Becerra said he would remain in the race if Harris runs.

Other announced candidates include the following Democrats: Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, state Controller Betty Yee, state schools chief Tony Thurmond, former Rep. Katie Porter, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and businessman Stephen Cloobeck. Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is also running.

Becerra joins another prominent Latino, Villlaraigosa, in a race in which the Latino vote could be crucial. Becerra said he believes his credentials and experience speak for themselves.

“I feel very comfortable knowing who I am, what I’ve done, what I can tell people I did, what I built, how I protected, how we achieved,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you try to give people a choice. That’s what elections are about.”

Becerra, 67, has been in public office for 35 years. He served in the state Assembly for two years before being elected in 1992 to Congress. He ultimately served 12 terms in the House and held multiple leadership positions under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

In 2016, he was nominated by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to become the state’s attorney general, a traditional springboard to higher office, after Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. During his tenure as the state’s top prosecutor, he filed more than 120 lawsuits against Trump during the president’s first term. Trump is expected to be a major focus of the governor’s race in a state that is once again expected to be a leading force in efforts to fight the Trump administration.

“I’ve seen this B-rated movie before, and we’re ready to take it on,” he said.

Becerra, who was the first Health and Human Services secretary to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic, pointed to the administration’s work to push back on Trump administration policies, such as those about reproductive care, during his tenure in the Cabinet. The Biden administration, he noted, went to the Supreme Court to protect access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used to medically end pregnancy.

“We’ve clearly played strong defense,” he said in an interview earlier this year in the formal conference room outside his office days before Trump was inaugurated.

Becerra took the oath of office in March 2021 to lead the sprawling Health and Human Services bureaucracy of 95,000 people, at a time when COVID was a top concern. He said one of his agency’s top accomplishments was getting 700 million COVID vaccination shots into the arms of Americans.

He also highlighted the launch of the 988 hotline that provides round-the-clock suicide and crisis counseling as well as providing more than 300 million people access to healthcare, with 46 million Americans getting health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

But Becerra also faced criticism as secretary over his handling of issues including the monkeypox outbreak, including from members of the Biden administration who argued that he lacked urgency and sought to offload responsibility to the states, according to reports published by the New York Times, Washington Post and others. He defended his response, arguing that his department was ahead of the curve in distributing monkeypox vaccines across the nation, and that state and local jurisdictions ultimately made decisions about how they were distributed.

“We can’t control how the states and local jurisdictions distributed the vaccine, but we made sure they got it,” he said.