Congressman Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles isn’t the Hispanic darling of the Democratic Party that other Latinos happen to be this presidential election year, but he may be the most powerful politician on the West Coast that few people have heard about.
As the fifth most powerful among the 190 Democrats in the House, Becerra has earned the vice-chairmanship of the
House Democratic Caucus and established himself as one of the most sought after political figures this fall.
“I’ve been to Connecticut. I’ve been to Ohio. I’ve been to Michigan. I’ve been to Illinois,” says Becerra who has been to those states not only as President Barack Obama’s surrogate but also to campaign for fellow Democrats.
“Xavier is tremendous on the campaign trail because he doesn’t come across as a slick, professional politician,” says political consultant William Orozco. “People trust him. Voters listen to him. He has all those Middle American values that are invaluable in a campaign.”
Becerra does it with a self-deprecating charm that warms people to him. He also loves to portray himself as a policy wonk who could not possibly have a political future.
“I’m certainly not the best at politics,” he says.
But all that political work on behalf of Democrats has not gone unnoticed by both party leaders and the rank and file who have benefited from his efforts.
Xavier Becerra could be moving up the Democrat political ladder
Becerra, 53, has also emerged as someone who could move up the leadership ladder in the coming years. He is now a member of the new budget-cutting “supercommittee”—Congress’s 12-member joint deficit-reduction panel.
It is a position that has been made all that more important in light of the economic recession and the focus of the presidential campaign on reducing the national deficit.
That work is coming to a deadline shortly after the election and as the vice chairman of the House Democratic caucus, Becerra must balance that role with being a member of the supercommittee, the CHC and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“I don’t care what the final package looks like—it’s going to be a tough vote,” Becerra says of the supercommittee challenge. “There are no easy votes here, and so it’s going to be something that. . . the pain will be obvious, and it’s more a matter of (whether) we can show we spread the pain, so we can spread the gain as well.”
In the meantime, Becerra has also been stumping all over California where the Congressional campaigns have superseded the presidential race that Obama is expected to win easily.
In California and in the western states especially, Becerra has been effective in painting GOP challenger Mitt Romney into a joint corner with the Republicans’ anti-immigrant champions such as former California Governor Pete Wilson and others.
“From calling the DREAM Act a hand-out and vowing to veto it, to campaigning with Kris Kobach, the architect of Arizona and Alabama’s anti-immigrant laws, to stating that all undocumented immigrants should ‘self-deport,’ Mitt Romney has broadcast an unmistakable message of what he thinks of Latinos,” says Becerra.
“Now we have Gov. Romney standing side by side with the most vocal adversaries of our community: Kris Kobach, Jan Brewer, Joe Arpaio, Steve King, Pete Wilson.”
Rep. Xavier Becerra of California. (Photo/ Becerra for congress)
“There’s a saying in Spanish that says it all: Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres. Tell me with whom you walk and I will tell you who you are. We now know who Mitt Romney is.”
The most powerful Latino in Washington also fighting for undocumented student immigrants is New Jersey’s Sen. Robert Menendez, a champion of the Dream Act and the Hispanic communities rights.
What gives Becerra’s knocks on Romney more legitimacy than the criticism from other Obama surrogates is that Becerra also has the credibility that comes from long experience.
He has been in Congress since 1992 and today holds a senior position on the House Ways and Means Committee, possibly the most important committee on Capitol Hill.
But it has not been a political rise without creating waves.
In 2008, just after Obama’s historic presidential triumph, Becerra turned down his offer to be his U.S. trade representative.
“I think Xavier thought he could do more good in Congress,” says Orozco. “But, just as important, I think was that he wanted to maintain his political independence.”
“He didn’t want to be stamped as Obama’s Hispanic at a time when the president still had a ways to go in establishing his own Latino agenda and credentials with the country’s Hispanic community.”
Now it may be that independence that also gives credibility to his defense of Obama, especially in the failure of the president to follow through on his 2008 promise that he would press for comprehensive immigration reform.
“If it were up to the president and to Democrats, the DREAM Act would be the law of the land today,” says Becerra. “If it were up to the president and to Democrats, we’d have comprehensive immigration reform today.”
