As California\u2019s top law enforcement official, Becerra\u2019s office sued to defend immigrants\u2019 ability to access public benefits;<\/a> preserve the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program<\/a>, which protects undocumented people brought to the U.S. as children from deportation; and challenge the exclusion of undocumented people from the 2020 Census count.<\/a><\/p>\n By the time he left in January 2021 to join the Biden administration, his office\u2019s success rate was around 82%<\/a>. It lost five cases and won 23, with myriad others pending. His office filed 110 cases and used $43 million in state funds to fight<\/a> to preserve billions more in state funds that it said California would have lost if the White House won.<\/p>\n Becerra\u2019s successor, incumbent Attorney General Rob Bonta, has filed an average of one lawsuit a week since Trump reentered office last year.<\/p>\n In the six years since it upheld DACA in response to a Becerra-led challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed Trump a series of legal victories including: rolling back the constitutional right to abortion, declaring state bans on conversion therapy incongruent with free speech and gutting parts of the Voting Rights Act. California\u2019s congressional clout has also diminished in that time.<\/p>\n If elected governor, Becerra said he would work \u201chand in glove\u201d with the California attorney general to fight against federal incursions as the White House has continued to target California.<\/p>\n \u201cWe proved to the Trump administration that we were more than up to the fight,\u201d Becerra said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. \u201cI will be more aggressive in making sure the full scale of state government is used \u2014 not just the Attorney General\u2019s office. And I will try to find ways where we can work with our largest partner, the federal government, so it\u2019s not just one of these things we\u2019re always just fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading\u2026<\/p>\n There are a few fights on the horizon as the federal government is challenging California\u2019s ability to protect trans student-athletes against discrimination, set its own climate emission standards, and grant trucking licenses to immigrants.<\/p>\n Amanda Renteria, Becerra\u2019s former chief operations officer, recalled one of the first cases the office confronted when Trump took office in 2017 was a temporary ban on refugees and travelers from seven Middle Eastern and North African countries, known as the Muslim ban.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just so blatantly implemented, so poorly covered,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was Trump 1.0 where he didn\u2019t know, and he and his team were trying things, and they didn\u2019t know what they were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Becerra\u2019s office was one of many who challenged the ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually upheld in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since then, the Trump administration has \u201claid the groundwork to embed anti-immigrant sentiment all across the country,\u201d Renteria said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were sloppy in the first go-round and in the second go-round, they figured out how to maneuver the system and their own executive authority in a different kind of way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n During that time, Becerra was criticized for being slow to join a multistate effort investigating tech monopolies<\/a> and for opposing police reform legislation.<\/a> That included legislation to make misconduct records more publicly available. Becerra warned journalists they could be prosecuted for possessing confidential information<\/a> after reporters with UC Berkeley\u2019s Investigative Reporting Program obtained a list of cops and applicants who had been convicted of crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI simply repeated what the law says. If you are in possession of information that is confidential and you disclose and you make that information public, or you disclose it, you are subject to action for violation of privacy laws,\u201d Becerra said.<\/p>\n One bill from former Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, which died in committee, would have required departments to release records of officers accused of racism or discrimination. Another, by former Assemblymember Kevin McCarty \u2014 now Sacramento mayor \u2014 required the Attorney General\u2019s office to investigate police shootings, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in 2020.<\/p>\n Skinner did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n McCarty said he had introduced his legislation, which law enforcement opposed, five times before the Legislature passed it in 2020. Becerra\u2019s office initially opposed it, citing concerns<\/a> that it did not have adequate staffing and funding to adequately investigate police shootings.<\/p>\n McCarty has not endorsed anyone in the governor\u2019s race. He said the Attorney General\u2019s office eventually helped \u201cpush it over the finish line\u201d after concerns about police brutality in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s murder made it \u201cmore of a bipartisan issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Becerra said he later supported the bills after working with the authors on amendments, to make sure \u201cthey would work the way they intended them to work, being, at the time the chief law enforcement officer, the top cop as the AG, and they were implicating the work that we would do.\u201d<\/p>\n As he seeks a return to Sacramento, Becerra has faced questions about his role in an ongoing federal investigation after the FBI arrested his former campaign manager and senior adviser, Dana Williamson<\/a>, last fall. The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office accused her, lobbyists Greg Campbell and Alexis Podesta, and Sean McCluskie, Becerra\u2019s former chief of staff, of stealing campaign funds from Becerra by billing his campaign in $10,000 monthly increments. Williamson is discussing a plea deal with prosecutors, according to court documents.<\/p>\n Becerra, whom the indictment described as a victim of the alleged conspiracy<\/a>, has not been accused of wrongdoing. Both he and Podesta cooperated with the investigation.<\/p>\n Becerra said he was not worried that the U.S. Department of Justice would target him, like it has other Democratic officials like former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what the Trump machine will do. But I know based on the facts, based on my cooperation with the Department of Justice, that I have no basis to worry,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we all have a reason to worry about the way this Trump administration and this Department of Justice conducts its affairs, because it doesn\u2019t do them based on facts.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n
![\"Profile](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SAC_54_HA_241126_LiaRussell.jpg\")