Welcome to Sacramento’s new political reality, where Governor-elect Xavier Becerra isn’t ready to lay out a detailed policy agenda but is making one thing abundantly clear: he intends to get along with Democratic leaders at the state Capitol.
“We’ve tried to make it very clear, being here just a couple of days after the election, that we’re going to work together. This is going to be a partnership,” Becerra told reporters gathered in the Capitol rotunda last week.
“Get used to it,” he added, standing alongside Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.
Becerra, Limón and Rivas — commonly referred to in Sacramento circles as the Big Three — will hold the ultimate say over California’s policy direction in the coming year. So far, none of them has committed to specific legislative solutions for the major issues awaiting lawmakers when they reconvene in January.
Those challenges are substantial. New federal restrictions, including cuts to Medi-Cal — the state’s health program for low-income and disabled residents — threaten to strip coverage from more than a million Californians starting January 1. Lawmakers also still need to settle the long-simmering dispute over who should bear financial responsibility for wildfires sparked by utility equipment, after a last-minute deal collapsed earlier this year. On top of that, voters handed Democrats a mandate this election cycle to rein in artificial intelligence, crack down on corruption, ease the cost of living and boost housing supply.
Becerra’s early pledge to work hand-in-hand with the Legislature marks a notable departure from the approach favored by outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom, who frequently dropped sweeping policy proposals on lawmakers as deadlines loomed, using the pressure of the clock to force quick action and limit time for opposition to build.
That strategy backfired earlier this year when Newsom tried to push through major changes to how utility companies and insurers cover the costs of wildfire damage caused by power equipment. Still, in prior years his eleventh-hour maneuvering produced legislation to speed up infrastructure construction by narrowing legal challenges and exempting urban apartment projects and other developments from environmental review requirements.
Rivas acknowledged that lawmakers have grown frustrated over the years with Newsom’s late-session tactics, even though the governor repeatedly stressed that early communication was the key to winning legislative support.
“It’s pretty clear, based on the interactions we’ve had so far, that this is going to be a different kind of relationship than this Legislature has experienced over the last eight years,” Rivas said.
“I have full confidence in the governor-elect when he says he’ll do everything he can to work with the Legislature and not spring unexpected measures on us.”
Becerra’s background as both a former Assembly member and congressman positions him to be an understanding partner for Limón and Rivas, said Richard Stapler, a Democratic political strategist and former senior adviser to Santa Cruz state Senator John Laird. Having once led the Latino Legislative Caucus, Stapler noted, Becerra knows firsthand how difficult it can be to manage a diverse group of members with competing priorities and philosophies.
“The success of his tenure as governor will depend heavily on his ability to maintain a strong, thoughtful working relationship with the Legislature,” Stapler said.
Former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said some friction between the executive and legislative branches is normal, no matter how cordial things may look on the surface. He explained that when lawmakers bristled at what they saw as overreach by Newsom or his predecessor, Governor Jerry Brown, it often stemmed from legislators having ceded their own leverage — such as when lawmakers left Sacramento at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s easier for one person to act than for an entire body to act,” Rendon said.
Since clinching the Democratic nomination for governor as the only major candidate in the race, Becerra has met individually with numerous lawmakers, as well as with the Senate and Assembly Democratic caucuses as a whole.
Last month, he joined Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who chairs the Assembly’s appropriations committee, for a visit to a new affordable, transit-oriented housing development made possible by a 2025 housing law.
Wicks, who has made housing policy a signature issue, said she told Becerra she plans to reintroduce a bill that stalled this year aimed at boosting condominium construction — a crucial entry point for first-time homebuyers — by reforming state construction-defect liability laws that have discouraged developers from building new condos.
“Because he’s been a legislator, he understands the rhythm and dynamics of a legislative body, and he also understands how attached we get to our ideas — we marry our bills, as the saying goes,” Wicks told CalMatters. “I think more collaboration from the outset will matter, and it will certainly be welcomed by the Legislature.”
When Sirat Attapit started as director of legislative affairs in then-Attorney General Becerra’s office in 2017, her new boss instructed her to try to meet with all 120 members of the Legislature and build relationships with each of them.
“As a former legislator himself… he really wanted to build a relationship with them,” Attapit told CalMatters earlier this year.
She described Becerra as someone deeply attentive to the finer details of policy proposals, often directing staff to flag bills as having a “fiscal impact” on the state even if the cost amounted to just a few thousand dollars or a fraction of a full-time employee’s workload each year.
Becerra has previously said he’d like to see lawmakers introduce fewer bills overall, aiming for a more focused and coherent legislative agenda for the state. Lawmakers showed some restraint in 2026, introducing just under 1,850 bills compared with more than 2,100 in both 2024 and 2025.
“That requires me to reach out to them ahead of time,” he told KCRA last month, “to talk with them, so they don’t feel like they have to push forward no matter what and then find out at the end that I didn’t like what they were doing.”
Becerra has repeatedly chosen caution over specifics, steering clear of policy details in favor of broad promises to prioritize “affordability” and “fighting for working families,” while insisting that “everyone pays their fair share.”
Asked whether he would commit to reversing Newsom’s move to cut health care benefits for undocumented immigrants — a decision Becerra appeared to defend in a recent interview with KQED — he grew visibly annoyed, accusing reporters of “playing politics” by pressing him for commitments before he had access to full information, including the latest budget projections.
“Guys, don’t come at me with these commitment questions, because that’s not what I was elected to do,” Becerra said. “Plenty of others make wild promises, and they’re not the governor-elect.”
Pressed on how Becerra’s approach might differ from Newsom’s, Rivas said he wasn’t sure whether their policies would diverge significantly. Like Becerra himself, the speaker mostly pointed to the governor-elect’s background as a former legislator and the son of immigrants.
One area where the three Democratic leaders appear to be aligned early on is the so-called Fair Share tax proposal — an idea pushed by liberal lawmakers to tax large corporations whose workers earn so little that they qualify for public assistance programs like Medi-Cal.
Facing federal funding cuts and a state budget shortfall, Newsom began scaling back Medi-Cal in recent years with lawmakers’ approval. Some legislators pushed for a tax to offset the lost revenue, but Newsom has generally resisted tax increases. The compromise reached was to direct the state to study how such a tax might work, with the Department of Finance expected to deliver a report in March.
State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Senate’s labor committee, said she discussed the Fair Share plan with then-candidate Becerra earlier this year. When she ran into him at an event for Black leaders last month, she said he told her he fully supported the concept.
“He stopped me and said, ‘I really want to work on the Fair Share program. I want to get it done. I think it’s important for how we move forward after Trump’s attack on our health care system,'” she said.
“It was really encouraging that he remembered the conversation, that he remembered I had raised that point, and that he sought me out,” she added.
Rivas said he, Limón and Becerra share a “natural affinity and a willingness to act” on the issue, though all three are waiting for the Department of Finance’s recommendations before pursuing anything concrete.
Legislative leaders were more guarded about another idea Becerra floated during his campaign: requiring utility companies to provide low-income households with two hours of free electricity during off-peak daytime hours.
Limón said she believes such programs can offer “short-term” relief for families struggling with high electric bills, and that her caucus “has always welcomed all ideas.”
Rivas said he still needed to check in with Assembly Democrats on the specifics.
“Could there be alignment?” he said. “Possibly.”
Original source: CalMatters
