The single best thing to be said about Joe Biden nominating Xavier Becerra to become his Health and Human Services secretary is that it immediately takes the Californian out of the running to fill Kamala Harris’s Senate seat. The only other good thing is that Becerra is such an objectionable pick that it will require Republicans little political capital to obliterate his nomination should they retain the Senate.
The president-elect’s early staffing choices have mostly fit Biden’s brand of interventionist, fiscally liberal establishmentarianism. With his close ally Chris Coons already serving as Biden’s Senate envoy to grease the wheels of the congressional deadlock, Republicans will feel the pressure not to overplay their hands in nuking Biden’s more tempered nominees. Luckily for Republicans, Becerra presents an easy target against whom they can flex their power with little political capital lost. It also takes one of the worst potential replacements for Harris’s seat out of the running, a possibility far more terrifying than a Cabinet nomination.
