Governor’s budget boosts AG’s office funding, in part to enforce new laws

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom gave Attorney General Xavier Becerra a nice present last week: a billion dollars.

The California Department of Justice was hardly mentioned in most of the media coverage when Newsom introduced his first budget, despite the fact it made a bit of history: Becerra will almost certainly be the first state attorney general in U.S. history to control a10-figure budget.

But Becerra doesn’t just have Newsom to thank. The bulk of the nearly $39 million in new money and more than 200 new positions come in direct response to new laws passed by the Legislature and signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown.

The department has new responsibilities around gun control, hate crimes, sex crimes, cannabis and DNA. Many of these priorities can be seen in more than 60 job postings on the DOJ website. Becerra’s two years in office have coincided with a historic increase in the size and profile of the attorney general’s office.

These numbers reflect both the size of California and that few states ask their attorney general to do nearly as much. The next-largest state Department of Justice is in Texas, but it is just over half the size of California’s. A review of California budget documents going back several years confirmed that no recent attorney general has controlled so much money.

Most of the increase — $37 million — is coming from the state’s general fund. But regular taxpayer money provides just a third of the department’s budget. The rest is drawn from a dizzying array of fees and funds paid by everyone from tribal casinos to pawnbrokers.

Much of the attention has gone to Becerra’s 50-some court battles with President Donald Trump. Some conservative commentators were sharply critical when it came out that Brown included an extra $9 million in Becerra’s budget last year for litigation with the U.S. government.

Less noticed was the fact that Becerra’s budget jumped by about $154 million between the 2017-18 and 2018-19 budget years, reaching $995.6 million in the current budget year, according to figures released by Newsom’s office.

The main reasons for the jump come from far closer to home: the end of the ongoing budget crises that followed the financial crash and changing legislative priorities. These include criminal justice realignment, cannabis legalization and mounting pressure to deal with a backlog of DNA samples from alleged criminals.

The department’s budget summary notes 192 positions and $88 million to deal with more than two dozen bills passed in the past couple of years. This includes money to address organized retail theft. AB 1065 seeks to fight the rise in shoplifting that has accompanied Proposition 47, which increased the threshold for a theft to be considered a felony.

Becerra will get $477,000 and three new positions to meet the terms of SB 1421, which demands the public release of complaints and discipline records of police officers. Nearly $1 million is slated for work related to cannabis resentencing in the wake of legalization, as called for in AB 1793.

Some of the biggest figures come from regulating firearms. Becerra’s predecessor, current U.S. Sen. Kamala D. Harris, was frequently criticized for slow progress in addressing a backlog in the prohibited persons database though Harris said she didn’t have the necessary funds.

“Over the past several years, the number of individuals added to the armed and prohibited persons list was significantly greater than those being removed,” Newsom’s budget summary stated. “Annual increases in the number of new [Armed Prohibited Persons System] offenders due to long gun records being added to the system, increased firearm sales, and newly prohibited offenses has led to a backlog in the number of cases in APPS.”

Newsom addressed this situation with $16.9 million in new money. This includes $6.9 million in additional money for the Bureau of Firearms and another $1.9 million for SB 746, a new law designed to make it easier for prohibited persons to transfer guns back to dealers.