Xavier Becerra Wants To Save Hollywood As Governor, Offers Few Specifics

Leading in the polls to be the next governor or California, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra is holding to the physician oath of “do no harm,” at least when it comes to his plans to preserve and grow production in the home of Hollywood.

“I will defend what has been built,” he said Friday, when he unveiled his Film Industry Policy proposals. “I will expand what is working.“

Offering few specifics and no dollar signs but lots of good intentions, Becerra today pledged to “expand” the Golden State’s $750 million a year film and TV tax incentives.

See the full proposal below.

“I intend to increase the program’s scale, capacity and access,” the veteran Democrat proclaimed. “Because a state serious about keeping this industry does not let qualified productions walk out the door, and every check it writes must come back to California workers.” 

Alas, sounds great, but the onetime state Attorney General does not say by how much. Heading towards a June 2 primary that will reduce the sprawling race for governor to the two candidates with the most votes — and most likely finding Becerra facing a sure-to-lose Republican– playing it safe has pros and cons for the Democrat.

“It’s great that production has become a hot topic in the election, but where’s the beef?” a streamer exec told Deadline as Becerra’s plan went public. “People want solid numbers.”

The Becerra campaign did not respond to requests from Deadline for specifics.

Unlike various other gubernatorial contenders like ex-Fox News anchor Steve Hilton (Becerra’s closest rival in the polls to get in the November runoff) and IATSE-backed progressive billionaire (an only-in-California oxymoron) Tom Steyer, budget-conscious Becerra won’t uncap the tax credit.

In that context, and as the DGA continues talks for a new contract with the studios and streamers, Steyer’s campaign horned in on their fellow Democrat’s policy proposals Friday.

“The truth is Xavier Becerra’s entertainment plan isn’t ready for prime time,” a spokesperson for Steyer told Deadline. “While Tom Steyer will stand up to Big Tech and mega-mergers to protect the film industry, Becerra would be nothing more than a rubber stamp for corporate interests gutting Hollywood. We need a governor who will stand up for working people, not a politician who repeats industry talking points.” 

Without naming Steyer or any other candidate by name, Becerra put his experience to the fore, as he has throughout this roller coaster campaign for Gavin Newsom‘s job.

“I will invest in our workers, because California has a responsibility to prepare our workforce for the fight ahead,” Becerra added in language no politician, no matter how much of a budget hawk they may be, would disagree with. “And I will take this fight back to Washington, because American productions should not have to compete against foreign government treasuries with no support from their own.”

The latter was referring to the increasingly bipartisan waters of a national film credit program. That support appears to include Donald Trump, though the former Apprentice host has yet to officially put his thumb on any such scale.

Of course, without saying the words “Paramount,” “merger” or Warner Bros. Discovery,” Becerra made sure to check the anti-oligarch box today too.

“Across this industry, as across much of the American economy, the rewards have migrated upward while the risk has stayed with the worker,” he said. “A shrinking number of players capture more of the market, more of the profit, and more of the data that now determines whose work gets made and how it gets valued. That is not the natural order. It is the result of choices, regulatory, legislative, and corporate, that California has both the standing and the obligation to scrutinize and, where necessary, to challenge.”

In terms of challenges, Becerra said he plan is to gather industry stakeholders from the C-suites, the unions, the crafts, the creatives and more for a sit-down to come up with a common strategy to stop the decline in production, job losses and the looming threats of consolidation and AI.

When that big shindig could be, Becerra’s team has left TBD; there is an election to win still.

Below is Becerra’s plan:

GUIDING PRINCIPLES 

California Is the Home of Film and TV and We Intend to Keep It That Way. The industry grew here because California offered what no other place could match. This platform is oriented around making sure the work, the craft, and the jobs that define this industry remain rooted in this state. 

This Industry Succeeds When Its Workers Succeed. From the stars on the red carpet to the crew who make the magic happen, these policies are measured against one standard: is it good for the people who do the work. That means protecting their livelihoods, ensuring they can negotiate fairly, and guaranteeing they share in the success their work creates. 

Prepare California’s Workforce for What’s Coming, Not Just What Was. AI and new technologies are already reshaping every craft in this industry. California’s workers deserve the tools, the training, and the governing authority to help set the terms of that transition, not just absorb it. 

Competing Means Committing, Here and in Washington. Other states and countries made sustained commitments and stuck with them. California can too. And our workers should not fight alone against foreign government treasuries. California will lead the push for federal support, because the government must show up for its workers at every level. 

POLICY AGENDA 

1. Convene the Industry’s Future: A California Entertainment Summit 

California will not manage this industry’s transition from the sidelines. How content is financed, made, distributed, and how workers get paid, all of it is restructuring at once. The compensation models that sustained a generation of middle-class entertainment workers were built for an industry that no longer exists. The market alone cannot plan its way through disruption this broad and this fast. I will convene a California Entertainment Summit: guilds, crew organizations, producers, studios, streamers, and technology companies, with a binding mandate: produce a public action plan, not a report. Each workstream will have a named lead and defined milestone with a goal of making California the most modern, worker-centered production ecosystem in the world, before someone else does it without us. 

2. A Tax Credit Program Built to Compete 

California’s tax credit program must be defended first – what exists today is the floor. From that foundation I will expand it, guided by ongoing assessment of where we are losing work: post-production and VFX, independent productions, episodic television at scale, and whatever gaps the data reveals. That means also updating eligible costs to reflect how productions are actually greenlighted and crewed today, not how they were structured a decade ago. Where demand is real, where jobs follow, and where the return to California justifies it, I intend to increase the program’s scale, capacity and access. Because a state serious about keeping this industry does not let qualified productions walk out the door, and every check it writes must come back to California workers. 

3. Make Performance Data Work for the People Who Earned It 

The entertainment industry has always run on the currency of success, and the ability to measure it, share in it, and build on it. The shift to streaming changed that equation in ways the industry’s compensation structures have not yet caught up with. What counts as success, what data is shared, and what triggers additional compensation are questions without consistent or verifiable answers for the writers, directors, cast, and crew whose work drives platform value. Workers cannot bargain fairly for what they cannot see, and they cannot plan careers around success they cannot verify. Voluntary transparency is not enough. I will support a California Content Performance Disclosure requirement: platforms must share meaningful performance data with the cast, writers, directors, and crew whose work drives their value, in a standardized form that gives workers what they need to bargain fairly. 

4. Set the Terms on AI Before Someone Else Does 

Artificial intelligence is already altering what work gets done, by whom, and at what cost. I will support state requirements that productions disclose how AI is being used, that gives performers enforceable rights over their own likenesses, and that ensures the people whose work trained these systems are compensated for it. 

5. Build out Entertainment Workforce Development and Transition Programs 

The people who built this industry deserve to shape what it becomes. My administration will strengthen and expand California’s existing workforce development infrastructure, provide stronger governing authority for workers and their guilds, deepen these programs’ ties to the tax credit program, and ensure that, as new technologies transform crafts, it is California’s workers who are helping set the terms of the transition. 

6. Fast Track State & Local Permitting 

No state in the country has California’s landscapes, but for many, the local and state permitting takes far too long. I will work to clear the bureaucratic friction that turns a permit request into a multi-agency ordeal, giving California’s irreplaceable locations back to the productions that want to shoot in them, and push for a more formalized state-local incentive structure to further encourage local governments to compete for the privilege of being places where films can easily get made. 

7. Take the Fight to Washington: A Federal Production Subsidy to Counter Trump’s Broken Promises 

California productions compete against the full weight of foreign governments like Canada, the UK, and France, and Washington has left us to fight alone. A federal solution is not a silver bullet – the work of keeping California competitive happens here, at home, through the policies in this platform. But, a Governor who knows this fight, who built the bipartisan coalitions on the House Ways and Means Committee, and who has the relationships to move legislation in Washington is better positioned than most to push for what California’s workers deserve: a federal government that is in this fight with them, not absent from it. My administration will partner with our congressional delegation and push for a bipartisan solution, conditioned on a domestic wage guarantee so any credit creates American jobs, not foreign ones.