{"id":688942,"date":"2022-06-07T13:05:31","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T13:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2022\/06\/ricardo-lara-ca-insurance-commissioner-donations\/"},"modified":"2022-06-07T13:05:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T13:05:31","slug":"ricardo-lara-is-the-insurance-industrys-favorite-democrat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/06\/07\/ricardo-lara-is-the-insurance-industrys-favorite-democrat\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricardo Lara Is the Insurance Industry\u2019s Favorite Democrat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Democrat Ricardo Lara is running for reelection as California state insurance commissioner in today\u2019s primary. A new complaint alleges that he\u2019s secretly accepting insurance industry donations after swearing them off \u2014 and it\u2019s not the first time.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n California insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco, California. (Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

When Californians head to the polls today to pick their nominees for governor and US senator, they\u2019ll also be voting on nominees for one down-ballot office that\u2019s critically important not just for California but for the entire country: the state insurance commissioner.<\/p>\n

And according to a new complaint, the incumbent in the race, Democrat Ricardo Lara, could once again be benefiting from donations by insurance companies he\u2019s supposed to be regulating.<\/p>\n

Last month, the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog filed a\u00a0complaint<\/a> with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) asking it to look into whether it was illegal for a pro-Lara independent expenditure committee to accept $125,000 in support from two closely tied LGBT political committees, after one of them received a similar amount of funding from the insurance industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like the insurance industry is secretly funneling campaign donations to support Lara\u2019s election, but is not disclosing those contributions,\u201d Consumer Watchdog executive director Carmen Balber, who wrote the complaint, told us. \u201cThis apparent money laundering, after the commissioner promised the public to do better, is incredibly disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lara, who took office in 2019, has been repeatedly criticized by consumer advocates for being too deferential to the insurance industry that he regulates; not doing enough to protect ordinary Californians who purchase home, car, and health insurance; and not taking advantage of his unique regulatory powers to fight climate change.<\/p>\n

Some critics suggest that Lara\u2019s coziness with the industry \u2014 and the way that it could be trying to come to his rescue with a last-minute infusion of industry-linked cash \u2014 may be to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be completely independent of the industry he regulates, California\u2019s insurance commissioner needs to refuse insurance industry campaign contributions,\u201d said Balber. \u201cHow can the public believe that the commissioner\u2019s actions are truly in their interests when not only is he apparently accepting support from the insurance industry, but attempting to hide that support?\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

A Climate Change Bully Pulpit<\/h2>\n \n

The position of insurance commissioner is often a low-profile office. But as the chief government watchdog of an industry worth over $300 billion in California alone, the insurance commissioner is actually one of the most important state regulators in the country \u2014 especially when it comes to addressing climate change.<\/p>\n

The insurance industry\u00a0has a critical role<\/a> in fueling climate change, both through insuring fossil fuel development projects and through investing consumers\u2019 premiums in fossil fuel companies. Insurance commissioners, therefore, have a unique ability to use regulation to curtail or at least shine a light on these destructive activities.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s insurance commissioner has \u201cat times been a leader on driving needed transformation in the insurance industry,\u201d said Yevgeny Shrago, policy director of the climate program at good government group Public Citizen and an expert in insurance regulation.<\/p>\n

Because California is such a large market, the insurance commissioner has a bully pulpit that can be used to change the actions of insurers that operate nationwide. Lara\u2019s predecessor, Dave Jones, nudged insurance companies into divesting\u00a0over $4 billion<\/a> worth of investments in coal and required large insurance companies to\u00a0publicly disclose<\/a>\u00a0their investments in fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

But these efforts have\u00a0largely stalled<\/a>\u00a0under Lara, who, to the disappointment and dismay of climate advocates, has done little to force insurers to take accountability for their contributions to climate change. \u201cCalifornia is now no longer the leader in insurance regulation on climate change issues,\u201d said Shrago. \u201cThat mantle has really fallen to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, who holds the position of insurance commissioner is especially important for Californians. As the state\u2019s wildfires mount in range and intensity with each passing season, insurance companies are seeking to raise rates to cover their growing losses or in some cases withdrawing coverage from high-risk areas altogether.<\/p>\n

The insurance commissioner is in charge of implementing the state\u2019s policy response to this issue. Consumer advocates say the best solution is for the department of insurance to pass regulations requiring insurance companies to offer coverage to homes that take fireproofing measures, such as installing flame-resistant roofing. Homes built to the latest fireproofing standards are\u00a0much less likely<\/a>\u00a0to burn in wildfires, driving down the average cost of insuring them.<\/p>\n

Lara\u2019s department of insurance has made some moves towards such regulations, but too slowly and with proposals that are too mild, critics charge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lara initially seemed like a strong bet for reelection, due in part to\u00a0support<\/a> from California governor Gavin Newsom (D), Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), and several other statewide Democratic elected officials. But after all of the state\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0major<\/a>\u00a0newspapers<\/a>, citing Lara\u2019s ethics scandals, endorsed rival candidate and state assemblymember Marc Levine (D) to replace Lara, his reelection may no longer be such a sure thing.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

\u201cLast-Minute Mudslinging\u201d<\/h2>\n \n

Between June 2021 and April this year, insurance companies\u00a0donated<\/a> $122,500 to the political fund of the California legislature\u2019s LGBTQ legislative caucus. The donors included GEICO, Farmers Group, and Anthem. In April 2022, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Caucus Leadership Fund sent $75,000 to Equality California, an LGBT organization.<\/p>\n

Last month, the LGBTQ caucus and Equality California donated a combined $125,000 to an independent expenditure committee supporting Lara. Lara was vice chair<\/a> of the LGBTQ caucus when he was a state senator and remains listed on its website<\/a>\u00a0as an ex-officio member.<\/p>\n

The Consumer Watchdog complaint alleges that Lara\u2019s campaign or the LBGTQ caucus committee may have violated the state’s prohibition on campaign money laundering if it “coordinated the contributions of insurance companies to the LGBTQ Caucus committee, then to the Lara [independent expenditure] committee, which failed to disclose the true source of the contributions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FPPC is\u00a0investigating<\/a> the complaint but won\u2019t issue any findings until after the June 7 primary.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Lara\u2019s campaign has come under fire over insurance industry donations. Lara accepted\u00a0over $270,000<\/a>\u00a0from donors with ties to the insurance industry, despite a campaign pledge to forgo such cash. In the wake of reporting on the insurance industry donations in 2019, Lara\u00a0promised<\/a>\u00a0to scrutinize his fundraising sources more carefully,\u00a0returned<\/a> over $83,000\u00a0of his campaign haul, and temporarily suspended his fundraising.<\/p>\n

Lara\u2019s two immediate predecessors in the role of insurance commissioner, Dave Jones and Steve Poizner, both swore off contributions from the insurance industry.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment by us, the Lara campaign declined to address the allegations. Instead, a campaign spokesperson emailed us a statement attacking Consumer Watchdog and suggesting that Levine was behind the complaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised that this blatant last-minute mudslinging attempt by Levine is getting any coverage \u2014 their whole point in filing these meritless things is to gin up free media,\u201d said campaign spokesperson Robin Swanson. She accused Levine of putting \u201ca dark money lobbyist on state payroll\u201d and said he \u201chas been fined twice by the FPPC for misleading voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levine has in fact only been fined once by the FPPC. In 2019, Levine was\u00a0fined<\/a> $4,500 in connection with a $50,000 donation in 2014 to a ballot issue committee he created. The donation exceeded the maximum legal amount and was not reported by the legal deadline.<\/p>\n

Levine\u2019s campaign dismissed Swanson\u2019s accusation in a statement. Campaign spokesperson Noah Finneburgh said:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s laughable that the Lara campaign would refer to a minor issue from eight years ago where we accidentally made two reporting errors to distract from Ricardo Lara\u2019s well-documented history of promising not to take insurance money, then taking it, and then intervening on behalf of his donors, as well as these new revelations that appear to constitute money laundering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the\u00a0Lever<\/i>,\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Californians head to the polls today to pick their nominees for governor and US senator, they\u2019ll also be voting on nominees for one down-ballot office that\u2019s critically important not just for California but for the entire country: the state insurance commissioner. And according to a new complaint, the incumbent in the race, Democrat Ricardo [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688943,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688942\/revisions\/688943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}