Leading in the polls to be the next Governor or California, former 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 today, unveiling his Film Industry Policy proposals (please see full plan below).” I will expand what is working.“
Offering next to few specifics and no dollar signs, but lots of good intentions, Becerra Friday pledged to “expand” the Golden State’s $750 million a year film and TV tax incentives.
“I intend to increase the program’s scale, capacity and access,” the seasoned 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.”
Watch on Deadline
Alas, sounds great, but the one-time state Attorney General does not say by how much. Heading towards the June 2 primary that will reduce the sprawling race for Governor to the top two candidates with the most votes and most likely find 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 said to Deadline as Becerra’s plan went public. “People want solid numbers.”
Also, unlike various other gubernatorial contenders like ex-Fox News anchor Steve Hilton (Becerra’s closest rival right now in the polls for the November run-off vote) and IATSE-backed progressive billionaire (an only-in-California oxymoron) Tom Steyer, budget conscious Becerra won’t uncap the tax credit.
“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 strongly 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,” he went on to say, stepping into the increasingly bipartisan waters of a national program, incentive or otherwise.
It should be noted that that bipartisan 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. 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 says what he will do is get industry stakeholders from the C-suites, the unions, the crafts, the creatives and more together for a sit-down to come up with a common strategy to stop the decline in production, big job losses and the looming threats of consolidation and AI.
When that big shindig could be, Becerra’s team has left TBD — cause there is an election to win still.
Read Xavier Becerra’s plan to save Hollywood here:
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.