Josh Becker

Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) represents California's 13th Senate District, covering most of San Mateo County and northern Santa Clara County ^[1,2]. A Stanford-trained attorney and entrepreneur who built his career at the intersection of technology, nonprofit leadership, and public policy, Becker was first elected in 2020 and won re-election decisively in 2024 ^[3,4]. While his voting record aligns strongly with progressive organizations, his extensive work on child care access, workforce development, data privacy protections for families, and his personal commitment as a father of two offer genuine areas of shared concern for family-focused advocacy ^[5,6]. With a 15% CFC Biblical Values Scorecard rating, Becker's voting record has consistently placed him at considerable distance from the California Family Council's worldview framework on the sanctity of life (Chapter 6), parental authority in education (Chapter 8), and religious liberty (Chapter 9).

Josh Becker was born on April 13, 1969, and grew up with a deep sense of service that was shaped by formative experiences abroad. After earning his bachelor's degree from Williams College, he traveled to war-torn Guatemala in the early 1990s to work with refugees and later started a school for repatriated refugees in El Salvador ^[1,7]. These experiences ignited a lifelong commitment to public service.

Becker's professional career before the Senate was defined by an unusual blend of entrepreneurship, technology, and social mission. After losing his father to brain cancer, he helped launch a biotech company focused on cancer research ^[1,5]. In 2000, he founded the Full Circle Fund, a Bay Area community leadership and policy innovation organization that has provided more than $10 million in grants to nonprofits working in education, economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, and health ^[5,8].

His 11.3% Biblical Values Scorecard rating across 102 scored floor votes reflects consistent divergence from CFC's worldview framework. His voting record has supported abortion access expansion over the sanctity of human life, government-directed education over parental authority and school choice, and progressive social mandates over religious liberty protections.

From the perspective of California families, Becker's record presents a mixed but substantive picture. His work on child care is a genuine area of alignment with family-strengthening priorities. SB 1307 addressed the early childhood education workforce shortage by making ECE workers eligible for state-subsidized child care, and he championed significant increases in child care funding and rate reform to support working parents ^[6,12].