AG has $2M in unspent campaign funds

Attorney General Xavier Becerra may be on his way back to the nation's capital, but nearly $2 million of his campaign funds will stay in California.

The money sits in Becerra's Attorney General 2022 election account. If he's confirmed as President-elect Joe Biden's secretary of health and human services, Becerra won't run in that race.

Becerra has been spending at a high rate for someone not facing an election this year: $908,286 between Jan. 1 and Sept. 19.

It's possible he was already leaning against running again. He's been a fundraising juggernaut. But his campaign has taken in just $217,074 this year, after raising $1.4 million in 2019.

Like several other recent state politicians who left office with large campaign cash reserves, Becerra could play kingmaker -- or use the money to return to run for another state office in the future.

He gave $100,000 to the California Democratic Party in August. Since his reelection, Becerra has paid $138,000 to Kaufman Legal Group APC, a top Democratic political law firm based in Los Angeles. Another $256,000 has gone to Capital Strategies, a fundraising firm with ties to Hillary Clinton and top level Democratic groups.

Becerra turns 63 in January. On several occasions he's openly ruminated on being in the later stages of his long political career, but he recently expressed interest in replacing Sen. Kamala D. Harris when she becomes vice president in January.

"I'd be honored to be the U.S. senator," Becerra told reporters in September when asked about the possible vacancy. "That's totally up to Gov. Gavin Newsom."

Secretary of State Alex Padilla is rumored to be the frontrunner for the appointment. Newsom will also likely make his choice before Becerra gets a Senate confirmation hearing for the Cabinet post, likely in March or April.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Becerra to replace Harris as attorney general in 2017. Many saw his departure from Washington as in part a reaction his inability to rise into top leadership. Becerra became chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in 2013. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, have long held the highest-ranking jobs.

Becerra and Harris also both raised the profile of the attorney general job -- Harris through her meteoric rise in just four years in Washington, D.C., Becerra by filing more than 100 lawsuits against President Donald Trump's administration. There are many top names who now want the job, but with Trump leaving office, the role will receive far less national media attention.

It's also not unusual for Cabinet secretaries to serve as little as two years. Biden is already 78 and may not run for a second term in 2024.

California's other Senate seat could open up by 2024, and possibly sooner. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is 87, and she may not seek reelection in four years. Many criticized her recent performance as the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including during the U.S. Supreme Court nomination hearings for Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

This led Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to ask her to step down from that high-profile post. According to a story published by The New Yorker on Thursday, Schumer had to ask Feinstein twice because she forgot the first conversation.

Under federal law, Becerra can't transfer the money to a federal campaign account. This was the conundrum former Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León faced when he challenged Feinstein in 2018. De Leon had $3.8 million in three state-level campaign accounts he couldn't use.

He ultimately raised less than half that amount, $1.8 million. Feinstein spent $16.9 million to defeat de Leon, and still held on to her seat by only about an 8% margin in a Democrat-on-Democrat general election. But de Leon just won a special election to the Los Angeles City Council and still has $3.2 million stashed in a state campaign account.

"You've seen it before," said Roger Salazar about high-profile California politicians leaving office flush with campaign cash.

The president of ALZA Strategies LLC was a campaign spokesman for Becerra in 2018 but is not currently under contract with him. Salazar pointed to examples like de Leon, former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and former Attorney General William W. Lockyer.

Nunez spread some of this money around to other candidates and initiative campaigns, Salazar said. This included $200,000 to the California Democratic Party in 2018.

Brown left office nearly two years ago with more than $15 million. He's spread some of that money around legislative races and gave $1 million this year to the effort to defeat Proposition 20. This was the failed law enforcement-backed initiative this year that would have reversed some of Brown's changes to the criminal justice system, in particular 2016's Proposition 57, which he championed.

If he does run for attorney general again, Becerra would be a prohibitive favorite. Since being re-elected, he's raised at least $172,000 from attorneys, much of it from a who's who of Democratic donors in California. Plaintiffs' attorney Brian S. Kabateck gave $7,800. Beceraa has gotten $38,900 from attorneys with Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP.

Becerra's current campaign spokesman could not be reached for comment.