As Becerra gets closer to new job, another possible AG is touted

Are the dominoes falling into place for Xavier Becerra — and for Robert A. Bonta?

The Republican effort to stop Becerra’s nomination to be U.S. Health and Human Services secretary faltered on Thursday. Two key U.S. senators — Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Republican Susan Collins of Maine — said they would support him. Then they did, as the Senate voted 51-48 to advance his nomination to a full floor vote.

Assuming Becerra gets that job, Gov. Gavin Newsom will get to appoint his successor as California attorney general. Newsom has said repeatedly he would hold off on naming someone until Becerra is confirmed. But multiple factors may now point at one potential nominee: Assemblyman Bonta, D-Alameda.

Bonta’s name has become increasingly popular in the Capitol rumor mill. Speculation grew Thursday with social media discussion of the www.robbontaforag.com website. Someone bought the URL in late December, but used a service that kept the buyer’s identity secret.

“He doesn’t own that domain, and that password protected site isn’t ours,” Bonta political adviser Nathan Click said in an email. “His campaign site is robbonta.com.”

Newsom told reporters more than a month ago he was very close to deciding. Plenty of other powerful people are vying for the job, including several with better name recognition than the five-term assemblyman.

However, Bonta may do a better job checking various political boxes for a governor facing a Republican-backed recall election in the second year of a pandemic. Newsom is clearly seeking to shore up his support with the progressive and ethnic political groups he would need on his side in an eventual vote.

Newsom recently appointed California’s first Latino U.S. senator, Alex Padilla, then appointed Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, who is Black, to replace Padilla as secretary of state. On Thursday, Newsom named former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs to the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers. Tubbs is Black and best known statewide for his experiments with universal basic income.

On Wednesday, representatives of a group of 124 elected politicians from the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities held a press conference speaking out against the recall.

“Instead of fighting COVID-19, Republicans are pulling a page of the Trump playbook and attacking Californians with a recall effort that will cost our state over $100 million — money that can vaccinate our communities,” Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, said during that event.

With reports of hate crimes growing against Asian-Americans, several groups have urged Newsom to pick an Asian-American attorney general. Zathrina Perez, president of the California Asian Pacific American Bar Association, is among those who have issued glowing public statements on Bonta.

He is one of two Asian-Americans often connected with the job. The other is California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin H. Liu.

But appointing Liu would come with questions — and not just over whether he’d want to give up his court seat. Davis S. Ettinger outlined some of these in a Monday post on the At the Lectern blog. A former president of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, Ettinger said a springtime departure of a justice could create havoc among cases the court has already heard, possibly leading to ties and vacated cases.

“Should Justice Liu be nominated for attorney general, he likely would no longer rule on any case in which he had heard argument,” Ettinger wrote. “There’s a good chance he would resign from the court immediately without a pro temming option. Liu is ineligible to be attorney general, or any other nonjudicial public official for that matter, as long as he’s still a sitting judge.”

Bonta would term out of the Legislature if elected to just one more two-year Assembly term. Just 48, he would be eligible to run for reelection for two four-year terms after serving out Becerra’s final two years. Bonta is also a Yale Law School graduate with an active State Bar license and stints as a U.S. District Court clerk, law firm associate and deputy San Francisco city attorney — far more legal experience than Becerra had when he was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Shifting public opinion around racial justice and other issues could pose problems for at least two other prominent names. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Hollywood, has openly sought the job, enlisting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s help. Dan Schnur, a well-known political consultant in California, has said a mysteriously sourced Politico piece in late January appeared to be a Newsom administration “trial balloon” testing out how naming Schiff might play with voters.

But Schiff’s name hasn’t played well among some progressives. Last month, a group including the California Public Defenders Association and leaders of Black Lives Matter sent Newsom a letter urging him not to pick Schiff. They object to bills passed in the late 1990s when he was chair of the California Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, whom Brown interviewed before he named Becerra to the job in 2017, could face similar problems. Progressive groups have mounted a recall campaign over his handling of homelessness, and circulated a letter urging Newsom not to name him as attorney general. Homeless advocates sued the city last year over allegedly illegal clearing of homeless encampments. Sacramento Homeless Union v. City of Sacramento, 34-2020-80003393-CU-WM-GDS (Sac. Super. Ct., filed May 27, 2020).

Bonta’s progressive bona fides are not in question. He was the closest ally of Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-San Fernando Valley, in the effort to phase out cash bail in California. He’s also introduced progressive bills around immigration, prisons, health care and housing.