With radical Neera Tanden — Joe Biden‘s pick to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget — on the brink of failure, another of his extremist cabinet choices may be teetering: Health and Human Resources nominee Xavier Becerra.
According to report from Breitbart, Republicans are unified in opposition against the former California Attorney General. And conservatives are already running ads against his nomination in states where incumbent Democrat senators could be vulnerable.
Seventy-five Republican members of Congress, led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, co-signed a letter to President Biden urging him to withdraw the nomination.
“Mr. Becerra’s lack of healthcare experience, enthusiasm for replacing private health insurance with government-run Medicare-for-all, and embrace of radical policies on immigration, abortion, and religious liberty, render him unfit for any position of public trust, and especially for HHS Secretary,” the members wrote.
Cotton sponsored ads against the Becerra nomination in New Hampshire and Georgia, where Democrats Maggie Hassan and Raphael Warnock are up for re-election in 2022.
Also, more than 60 pro-life leaders urged senators to reject the nomination of Becerra, citing his radical pro-choice policies as proof that he is an “enemy” of life.
“Mr. Becerra’s confirmation would be divisive and a step in the wrong direction,” the pro-life groups wrote in a letter sent to senators this week ahead of the chamber’s scheduled committee hearings on Becerra’s nomination.
Becerra “has proven himself to be an enemy of the health of women and the unborn. He cannot be entrusted with our national health programs and policies and is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services,” the letter states.
The pro-life groups cited multiple examples of Becerra using his power to prosecute and punish pro-life advocates, pregnancy centers, and religious individuals who fight for life.
His most well-known legal endeavor was when he took to court the Little Sisters of the Poor after the Trump administration granted religious groups an exemption from the Obama-era contraceptive mandate.
Even after the U.S. Supreme Court defended the Little Sisters of the Poor, Becerra continued to pursue litigation against them.
Becerra prosecuted pro-life journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt after they exposed Planned Parenthood’s sales of fetal body parts, challenged a Trump administration rule defunding Planned Parenthood of about $60 million in Title X funds, and defended a California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions.
“President Biden could not have picked a more eager pro-abortion activist to head HHS and we urge senators to reject his nomination,” Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannefelser said in a statement.
Pro-life Democratic leaders also urged U.S. senators to reject Becerra’s “extremist” positions.
“We need someone to lead HHS who values the fullness of life and won’t actively work to advocate to expand the opportunity to end it through abortion,” Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America, said in a separate statement. “The nomination of a state AG with little medical experience only serves the purpose of appeasing the abortion cultural warriors in the Democratic Party. This runs counter to the Biden Administration’s stated goal of healing divisions in the United States.”
Heritage Action for America has also produced an ad in opposition to Becerra’s nomination:
