‘When you break the huddle, you go’: Xavier Becerra’s polarizing playbook - POLITICO

The mild-mannered Democratic frontrunner has built a career on painstaking deliberation — and a stubborn refusal to back down once he has made up his mind. Illustration by Claudine Hellmuth/POLITICO (source images via Getty) Xavier Becerra could have taken the win. But he couldn’t help himself. As a freshman House member in the early 1990s, he had helped preserve welfare payments to blind, disabled and elderly legal immigrants, despite reservations from Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the Democratic chair of the powerful Ways and Means committee. At a weekly whip meeting, Becerra rose to thank leadership for backing the compromise. But when Rostenkowski grumbled about the deal, Becerra kept talking, insisting on immigrants’ rights to those benefits, as the elder lawmaker grew increasingly incensed. It was a jolt to a chamber steeped in hierarchy. The boyish newbie stood his ground in a war of words with the imposing lawmaker 30 years his senior. The stunning breach in congressional deference ta

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