GOP challenger takes on Xavier Becerra in attorney general’s race

California voters will decide between pairs of ideologically-similar Democrats in two statewide races this year. But the contrast between the attorney general candidates is pretty clear.

Xavier Becerra, the appointed Democratic incumbent, has made his name by suing the Trump administration nearly four dozen times. When New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned in May, Becerra became Trump's leading nemesis among state attorneys general -- a role he relishes.

Retired El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Steven C. Bailey, a Republican, has criticized the $9 million Becerra has spent litigating against Trump. His opposition to recent changes to the state's criminal justice system helped him lock up strong support from GOP and law enforcement groups.

"I think it's mostly his position on some of the recent criminal justice reforms that have led to early release, like Propositions 47 and 57," said Shaun Rundle, deputy director of the California Peace Officers Association. The group, which represents 16,000 state, federal and municipal law enforcement officers, endorsed Bailey in July.

But Rundle added that the association also has a "good working relationship with Becerra," even though he never sought their endorsement.

Becerra took 46 percent in the four-way June primary. Bailey got 25 percent, while Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, a Democrat, came in third with 15 percent. Becerra has raised about 14 times as much money as his opponent, though Bailey has shown strength among small-dollar donors.

While much has been made of Becerra's fights with Trump, former Attorney General Bill Lockyer -- now counsel with Brown Rudnick LLP in Irvine -- said his own tenure was also marked by "policy fights with the federal government." The longtime Democratic officeholder said the Trump administration has escalated these battles.

As an example, Lockyer pointed to the fight over California's right to set its own tailpipe emissions standards. Locker said he battled automakers and the George W. Bush administration over technical details and the extent of California's mandate, but Trump went further.

"They've not only repealed the rule but are attempting to undermine California's authority to adopt independent standards," Lockyer said.

He added that he didn't expect a possible full Becerra term to be much different. The biggest change he's noticed has been a greater tendency by Becerra to promote people from within the California Department of Justice, after a first few months notable for the number of outsiders he hired.

Becerra announced in February he had created a new Bureau of Environmental Justice. On Tuesday, his office announced California and 17 other states had filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the plaintiff challenging Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. Doe 2 v. Trump, 18-5257 (D.C. Cir., filed Aug. 29, 2018).

"I'm in court protecting Californians' right to health care, fighting predatory for-profit colleges and sued Trump -- and won -- to stop him from gutting our air quality protections and restricting women's access to birth control," Becerra said in an email.

Bailey, meanwhile, has criticized the incumbent attorney general's go-it-alone policies in immigration and net neutrality. He also describes what he sees as a cycle of misleading voters that goes back before Becerra.

Voters didn't understand what they were getting when they passed Proposition 47 in 2014, he said, due to misleading ballot materials produced by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Bailey has repeatedly cited rising violent crime in California.

A Public Policy Institute of California study released this month found violent crime in the state rose 1.5 percent last year.

But Bailey has also touted his work diverting some criminals from prison as a judge. Gov. Jerry Brown's realignment policies, he claims, have made it harder to address drug addiction and mental health.

"Addressing those kinds of concerns leads to a marked reduction in criminality," Bailey said Tuesday. "I don't even want those people to enter the justice system."

He pledged to work with the Legislature to create system of community-based treatment, and said moving people out of prisons into jails has made it harder to address recidivism. "We didn't do it well, but we actually did it in state prisons," Bailey said. "In the county jails, we now have to replicate those programs 58 times. What a waste of public money."

On Monday, Bailey stood outside the Capitol behind Proposition 6 sponsor Carl DeMaio as he denounced the ballot materials Becerra wrote for the initiative to repeal last year's new gas tax. Demaio threatened a recall campaign if the proposition loses and Becerra wins.

Becerra campaign spokesman Roger Salazar dismissed the press conference as a publicity stunt in a comment to reporters.