Becerra draws criticism from the usually-friendly Legislature

SACRAMENTO — Attorney General Xavier Becerra has enjoyed a chummy relationship with Democrat-dominated Legislature in Sacramento over the past two-plus years. But friction has cropped up recently as he defends an annual budget of more than a billion dollars for the first time.

This came to a head last week in a Senate Budget Committee hearing as Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, lambasted Becerra for refusing to release police records prior to Jan. 1 despite several courts saying her bill, SB 1421, applies retroactively.

At a hearing on Thursday, Skinner went so far as to suggest the three positions and $477,000 allocated for the California Department of Justice should be eliminated.

“It’s hard to see why you need additional funding and positions when you’re not releasing records,” Skinner said at the height of the exchange.

There were more tough exchanges Monday as Becerra appeared in an Assembly Budget subcommittee to defend other parts of his budget. Chair Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, took Becerra to task for not addressing the state’s backlog of untested rape kits more quickly. Becerra’s office was given about $1 million for the job, but as of last month, most of this money was unspent.

“We were somewhat shocked at the number out there after we put money in,” Weber said. “That was very frustrating.”

Becerra emphasized the need for better coordination and buy-in from local law enforcement. He said this was also an issue in the main program Monday’s hearing examined — the Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS).

This is a topic that tormented Becerra’s predecessor, Kamala D. Harris, for years. She regularly complained her office needed more money and staff to take guns from people not allowed to have them due to criminal convictions, domestic violence mental health and other reasons.

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, noted the Legislature provided $24 million in 2013 to bring this number down to zero. That year, the APPS backlog reached 20,000.

“We were assured that would take care of the problem,” Melendez said. “Then in 2016, you were given an additional $5 million to take care of the backlog. But what we have seen is the number of people with firearms has increased.”

The current APPS backlog of slightly less than 9,000 cases is actually a few hundred lower than what Becerra inherited, according to a committee analysis. But Becerra said this number is misleading.

For instance, he said, the 20,000 people on the list in 2013 have been dealt with. The current backlog consists of newer people added to the list, especially as the Legislature has continued to pass new gun laws. In many cases, Becerra told the committee, the person turned their gun into local law enforcement, but his department was never told.

With that in mind, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed to increase general fund support of APPS in order to shift it from dependence on the fees paid by gun dealers to check buyers’ eligibility to buy firearms. But an analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office found Becerra’s office had only justified that more than $16.9 million of the $22.4 million allocated for the program is needed.

“We hope that for the first time we’ll have the opportunity to provide the resources it will take,” Becerra said. He went on to add he needed to be able to offer more “competitive salaries” in order to hire people to do the sometimes dangerous work of collecting these guns.

He also said his department should be allowed to approach people in court when a judge first orders them to surrender their guns.

“We wait until after they’ve left the courthouse, after they’ve left the jailhouse and haven’t yet turned in the weapon, even though by law they lost the right to possess those the moment they became felons or violators through a domestic order,” Becerra said.