Democrats have touted Becerra’s experience as a staunch defender of affordable healthcare and access to abortion, while GOP senators have argued that he is an unqualified culture warrior based on his record on First Amendment- and religious liberty-related cases.
Some of these cases are the following.
The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, an organization that provides legal advice for crisis pregnancy centers, sued the state in 2018 over a 2015 law that they argued violated their religious freedoms. In the case filed against Becerra in his capacity as California's chief legal officer, NIFLA argued that California’s Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act was unconstitutional because it required Christian nonprofit organizations to notify pregnant patients of the option to undergo an abortion at state-sponsored clinics.
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The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in a 5-4 decision in favor of NIFLA, maintaining that requiring the notices of abortion access violated the First Amendment. The Supreme Court ruling overturned an earlier decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Becerra also led a lawsuit against HHS and the Labor and Treasury departments over a 2017 rule that would exempt faith-based ministries, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns who provide care to elderly poor people, from the Obamacare mandate that insurance plans provide contraceptive coverage for their employees. The mandate has been a target of religious and conservative groups who allege it violates religious liberties.
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After issuing a temporary injunction to block the Trump administration’s new regulations meant to address “conscience-based objections,” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the Little Sisters of the Poor and the March for Life Education and Defense Fund to intervene in the case.
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In 2017, Becerra additionally filed suit on behalf of the state against anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for posing as researchers from a fake biotechnology company to record clandestine videos of themselves trying to procure fetal tissue from abortion providers.
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Becerra brought 15 felony charges against Daleiden and Merritt for illegally filming more than a dozen people in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2014 and 2015. The Superior Court of San Francisco rejected calls from the defense to dismiss the case in 2019. At their arraignment the following year, Daleiden and Merritt pleaded not guilty to nine felony counts involving eavesdropping and invasion of privacy. Daleiden has argued that he was working as an undercover journalist when he secretly recorded the conversations, which he maintains were his "First Amendment work product." The legal battle is underway in state court.
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