Bonta named attorney general
Oakland assemblyman, 48, was first Filipino American elected to state Legislature
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced he has chosen Assemblyman Rob Bonta, an Oakland Democrat, to be California’s next attorney general — a high-profile job and frequent steppingstone to higher office that was the epicenter of the state’s relentless lawsuits against the Trump administration over the last four years.
Bonta, 48, was the first Filipino American elected to the state Legislature in 2012. A close ally of Newsom who earned a law degree from Yale, he represents the 18th Assembly District, a Democratic stronghold that includes much of the East Bay, stretching from Oakland to San Leandro and including Alameda.
The nomination is subject to confirmation by the California State Assembly and Senate within 90 days, where approval is expected.
“Rob has become a national leader in the fight to repair our justice system and defend the rights of every Californian,” Newsom said. “And most importantly, at this moment when so many communities are under attack for who they are and who they love, Rob has fought to strengthen hate crime laws and protect our communities from the forces of hate. He will be a phenomenal attorney general, and I can’t wait to see him get to work.”
The state’s top law enforcement job became open after President Joe Biden nominated California’s previous attorney general, Xavier Becerra, to be secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Becerra was narrowly confirmed by the U.S. Senate 50-49 in a vote last week.
“As California’s Attorney General, I will work tirelessly every day to ensure that every Californian who has been wronged can find justice and that every person is treated fairly under the law,” said Bonta, whose appointment runs through the 2022 election.
In Sacramento, Bonta has garnered a reputation as a liberal, working on immigration, civil rights, tenants’ rights and public safety issues. He was co-author of SB 10, a bill that made California the first state in the nation to eliminate money bail for suspects awaiting trial and replace it with a risk-assessment system. After former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure into law, the bail bond industry put it on the state ballot and it was overturned by voters last November.
Bonta also co-authored bills that Newsom signed to ban private, for-profit prisons in California, and to compel state Department of Justice investigations of police shootings of unarmed civilians.
As California’s attorney general, he will lead the state Department of Justice, following in the footsteps of Becerra, Vice President Kamala Harris and Brown in one of the state’s most politically powerful jobs. The agency has roughly 4,700 employees. It prosecutes people and companies who violate state laws, defends state government agencies in court cases and advises the state government on legal issues.
A number of other political leaders, including U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton, and U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, were believed to be on Newsom’s short list. But choosing a Democrat from Congress would have further shrunk the Democrats’ very slim majority in the House. And after Newsom chose former Secretary of State Alex Padilla of Los Angeles to fill Harris’ U.S. Senate seat when she was elected vice president, some pundits expected a Northern California pick for the next big job.
Bonta’s selection comes amid several high-profile attacks against elderly Asian Americans in the Bay Area, former President Donald Trump calling the coronavirus “the China flu,” and a shooting in Atlanta that killed eight people, six of them Asian women.
“Hate crimes targeting the API (Asian/Pacific Islander) community have skyrocketed over the last year, and we need a champion who will make the pursuit of justice for these victims a top priority,” said Assemblymember Evan Low, D-Campbell, who serves as vice chair of the API Legislative Caucus. “I have full faith Attorney General Bonta is the right person to meet this moment.”
Bonta and his wife, Mialisa, live in Alameda with their three children.
Bonta’s parents were missionaries working in rural villages in 1972 when he was born in Quezon City, Philippines. His father, Warren, a U.S. citizen from Ventura County, had joined Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights organizing in Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s to pass the Voting Rights Act.
His mother, Cynthia, who was at the event Wednesday in San Francisco where Newsom made the announcement, has worked for decades in the Filipino social justice movement. Shortly after Bonta was born, former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and the family moved back to the United States.
They lived in a trailer at Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz, the United Farm Workers of America headquarters near Keene, California, and the home of legendary labor leader César Chávez. Bonta’s parents worked for Chávez and the UFW and organized Filipino and Mexican American farmworkers when he was a child. Later, they moved north to Fair Oaks, a Sacramento suburb. Bonta graduated as class valedictorian at Bella Vista High School, where he also was a soccer player.
After high school, he attended Yale University, where he was captain of the soccer team, then attended Oxford University in England to study political science, philosophy and economics, before returning to Yale, where he graduated in 1998 with a law degree.
From 2003 to 2012, Bonta worked as deputy city attorney of San Francisco. He entered politics in 2010, winning a seat on the Alameda City Council before being elected to the state Assembly in 2012.
Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a prominent statewide police lobbying group, issued a statement welcoming Bonta’s selection.
“We look forward to working with him to address the many important challenges and opportunities facing California’s law enforcement community today,” Marvel said, “and to ensure the practice of law enforcement reflects our shared California values.”