Xavier Becerra (; ; born January 26, 1958) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 25th United States secretary of health and human services under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, Becerra previously served as the 33rd attorney general of California from 2017 to 2021 and as a U.S. representative from California from 1993 to 2017. He has advanced to the 2026 general election for governor of California, where he will face Republican candidate Steve Hilton.
Becerra was born and raised in Sacramento and received Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from Stanford University. He worked as an administrative assistant for state senator Art Torres and as a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice in the late 1980s. He served in the California State Assembly from 1990 to 1992.
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, Becerra chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus from 1997 to 1999 and the House Democratic Caucus from 2013 to 2017. In 2017, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Becerra to replace Kamala Harris as attorney general after Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was elected to a full term in 2018 and served until he joined the Biden cabinet in 2021.
Early life and education Becerra was born on January 26, 1958, in Sacramento, California. He is the son of Maria Teresa and Manuel Guerrero Becerra. His father was born in Sacramento and raised in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and later moved back to the U.S as a teenager. His mother was from Guadalajara, Jalisco. Becerra grew up in a one-room apartment with his three sisters. He graduated in 1976 from C.K. McClatchy High School. He studied abroad at the University of Salamanca in Spain from 1978 to 1979 and earned his Bachelor of Arts in economics from Stanford University in 1980, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college. He received his Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1984 and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1985.
Early career As an attorney, Becerra worked on cases involving individuals who had mental disorders for the Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts (now Community Legal Aid).
Becerra returned to California, and in 1986, became an administrative assistant for Democratic State Senator Art Torres of Los Angeles. He served as a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice under Attorney General John Van de Kamp from 1987 to 1990.
After incumbent state assemblymember Charles Calderon decided to seek a seat in the California Senate, Becerra launched a campaign for the California State Assembly, defeating Calderon's Senate aide Marta Maestas in the Democratic primary. He went on to defeat Republican Lee Lieberg and Libertarian Steven Pencall, receiving 60% of the vote. Becerra served one term in the State Assembly, representing California's 59th district, from 1990 to 1992.
U.S. House of Representatives (1993–2017) Elections In 1992, Becerra won the Democratic primary in California's 30th congressional district with a plurality of 32% of the vote.CA - District 30 - Democratic Primary (1992) Our Campaigns In the general election, he defeated Republican nominee Morry Waksberg, 58%–24%.CA District 30 – General Election (1992) Our Campaigns He won re-election to a second term in 1994 with 66%CA District 30 (1994) Our Campaigns of the vote. His district was renumbered as the 31st district after the 2000 census.
After redistricting, ahead of the 2012 elections, most of Becerra's old district became the 34th district. He defeated Republican Stephen Smith 85.6% to 14.4%.
Tenure
Becerra was a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which he served as chair during the 105th Congress.
Becerra was appointed assistant to the speaker of the House for the 110th Congress. He won his bid to succeed John Larson as vice chair in the 111th Congress, defeating Marcy Kaptur of Ohio by a vote of 175–67. Becerra successfully ran for a second term as vice chair in 2011 to serve during the 112th Congress. He served as chair of the House Democratic Caucus from 2013 to 2017.
Abortion rights Becerra voted against H.R. 3541, the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would have imposed civil and criminal penalties on anyone knowingly attempting to perform a sex-selective abortion.
Becerra argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order, should be required to provide birth control services under the Affordable Care Act. In late 2020, arguing that the prosecution would discourage pregnant women from obtaining addiction treatment, Becerra urged the California Supreme Court to drop a murder charge against Chelsea Becker, a woman who had been arrested following a stillbirth in which methamphetamine was found in the fetus's system. He contended that the state's murder statute was intended to protect pregnant women from third-party violence, not to criminalize them for the outcomes of their own pregnancies.
2001 Los Angeles mayoral election
Becerra ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. He finished with 6% of the primary vote.
Consideration for federal government positions In 2008, Becerra was considered for the position of U.S. trade representative in the administration of President-elect Obama. While it was reported that he had already accepted, he announced on December 15 that he would not accept the position.
Becerra was on the shortlist of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for the vice presidential nomination in 2016. Senator Tim Kaine was eventually chosen.
Committee assignments Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight Subcommittee on Health Subcommittee on Social Security Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction
Caucus memberships Congressional Hispanic Caucus (Former Chair) Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Congressional Progressive Caucus
California attorney general (2017–2021)
On January 24, 2017, upon appointment by California governor Jerry Brown, Becerra took office and became the first Latino to serve as California's attorney general. Becerra was elected to a full four-year term in 2018, defeating Republican Steven Bailey with 63% of the vote. He delivered the Democratic Spanish-language response to President Trump's 2019 State of the Union address.
During his term as attorney general, Becerra filed 122 lawsuits against the first Trump administration.
California Department of Justice reforms Bureau of Environmental Justice In 2018, Becerra created an environmental justice bureau at the California Department of Justice. It opposed the effort to expand San Bernardino International Airport due to concerns regarding air pollution, intervened to halt a proposed waterfront cement plant in Vallejo, citing significant concerns over increased air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and supported the City of Arvin's oil and gas ordinance, endorsing a 300-foot buffer for homes, schools, and hospitals.
Protection of endangered species in Sacramento and San Joaquin River On May 11, 2020, Becerra secured a preliminary injunction in this lawsuit against the Trump Administration for unlawfully expanding water export operations in the Central Valley.
Criminal law enforcement On June 4, 2019, Becerra announced the arrest of Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the Mexican megachurch La Luz Del Mundo and other co-defendants. Charges included human trafficking, production of child pornography, and forcible rape of a minor. On June 8, 2022, Naasón Joaquín García was sentenced to more than 16 years in a California prison. In the same year, Becerra filed charges against a number of men for their alleged involvement in a statewide organized crime ring engaged in sex trafficking, tax fraud, and money laundering. Five suspects were sentenced in March 2022.
Becerra brought fourteen felony charges against Center for Medical Progress activists for secretly recording fourteen videos, and one felony charge for conspiring to invade privacy, on March 28, 2017. Two members of the group pleaded no contest to a felony each in 2025. In August 2018, an operation targeted the MS-13 gang in the Central Valley and beyond. The following year, multiple operations were directed against Norteño street gangs in Kings, Tulare, and Stanislaus Counties, as well as in Stockton. In December 2019, the Country Boy Crips in south Bakersfield were the focus of a significant operation.
In December 2020, Becerra was faulted by state district attorneys for not taking leadership to help stop unemployment fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic, in what was described as the "biggest taxpayer fraud in California history". In January 2021, investigators said the total fraud was over $11 billion, with $19 billion in claims still under investigation. Most of this money will likely never be recovered, prosecutors said.
Transparency In 2019, Becerra threatened legal action against reporters who had received records of California law enforcement officers who had been convicted of crimes during the past decade. The First Amendment Coalition stated about his position that it was "disheartening and ominous that the highest law enforcement officer in the state is threatening legal action over something the First Amendment makes clear can't give rise to criminal action". One of the reporters stated that Becerra's legal threat was "just completely wrong in its interpretation of the law" and "had real implications for press freedom". The reporters ultimately published a number of articles about the records, and Becerra never prosecuted them.
Becerra refused to offer independent investigation into the killing of Sean Monterrosa, who had been shot in the back of the head by police. He later opposed a bill that would have required him to do so. Becerra said in a public statement that there were "significant" allegations of "destruction of evidence" in the case of Monterrosa's killing.
Two major state newspapers have criticized Becerra for, they stated, shielding law enforcement and lacking transparency. A number of news outlets stated that a significant part of his campaign support was provided by law enforcement unions. In a move that was criticized by his own party, Becerra refused to enforce a state law that required the government to release information about police officers accused of rape and physical abuse, ultimately resisting lawsuits for at least six years and despite having been ruled against by an appeals court.
Death penalty During the COVID-19 pandemic Becerra acted to uphold a number of death penalty sentences. He stated in 2020 that he supported capital punishment with "serious reservations", while also stating that its applications were "deeply flawed" and that a number of "Americans have been wrongly sentenced to death in this country and later exonerated". He had earlier voted to repeal the death penalty in California in 2016. In 2017, he pursued the death penalty for a mass murderer. Becerra described Newsom’s 2019 decision to stop executions in the state as a "new direction in California's march toward perfecting our search for justice". The Los Angeles Times wrote in the same year that Becerra had "declined" to answer whether he supported capital punishment or not, stating only that the death penalty was part of the state law he had a duty to enforce. Two years later, his attorney general's office successfully argued to make it easier for juries to recommend death sentences, a position that Newsom argued against in court.