REPUBLICANS TAKING AIM AT NOMINATION OF BECERRA
Making case for rejecting Biden’s pick for Cabinet post
In an era when opposition lawmakers instinctively use confirmation hearings to hobble new presidencies, disqualifying at least one Cabinet nominee in the first 100 days of every administration since George H.W. Bush took office, Republicans are confident they have a ripe target in Xavier Becerra.
The GOP aims to reject President Biden’s pick to helm the Department of Health and Human Services, but not for the type of personal failings that typically doom early nominees. It is Becerra’s perceived political and policy sins that are fueling the bid to block him. His California credentials aren’t helping in a Senate where Republicans have hostility toward the state, particularly after Becerra led the filing of more than 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
On the Senate floor recently, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Becerra a “famously partisan” pro-abortion zealot who is unqualified for the job. Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford called Becerra’s policy pursuits “bizarre,” accusing the California attorney general of “encouraging the death of children.” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said Becerra is on the “extreme left.”
As other Biden nominees cruise to confirmation, Republicans are maneuvering to slow down the process for Becerra, who has declined interview requests. They are building their case in caucus meetings, in the Senate chamber and in the media.
Biden backers argue that in the 63-year-old Becerra, the president has found the technocrat to fit the time: a seasoned public executive and child of immigrants who helps fulfill the president’s pledge to name a Cabinet that reflects the diversity of America. Rarely before in his 30-year career in politics has Becerra been known as a firebrand, or “culture warrior” — a label Republicans now use for him, highlighting his support from groups that advocate for immigrant and abortion rights.
Becerra’s caution when he was a high-ranking congressman and then as the state’s top cop has some liberals back home griping that he is more part of the governing furniture than political tour de force.
Yet, Republicans are confident that amid enduring voter anxieties over health care, Biden overplayed his hand by choosing a longtime advocate of Medicare for All to run the Department of Health and Human Services. That persistent advocacy by Becerra, paired with his defense of the stay-at-home orders pursued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and even his campaign donations from big insurance companies are seen by Republicans as making the nominee uniquely vulnerable while Democrats just barely control the chamber. The big issues are unlikely to push wavering moderates into rejecting Becerra, but they are already firing up the conservative base and driving fundraising.