Ricardo Lara’s first yr as California insurance coverage commissioner — the elected workplace charged with regulating the state’s $310-billion insurance coverage trade — was an moral catastrophe.
In March 2019, Lara, a Democrat, held a lunch assembly with insurance coverage firm executives who had enterprise pending earlier than his division, for the aim, information confirmed, of constructing a relationship that may profit his reelection marketing campaign. In April, he accepted greater than $50,000 in marketing campaign donations from insurance coverage trade representatives and their spouses, together with from folks with ties to the corporate on the lunch assembly the month earlier than. In June, Lara overruled selections his division had beforehand made in ways in which benefited the corporate.
None of that is unlawful. Nevertheless it appears horrible for somebody whose job is to guard shoppers from being overcharged by insurance coverage corporations.
Insurance coverage commissioners have huge energy to impression the trade by approving or rejecting price will increase and investigating insurance coverage fraud. To keep away from the notion that cash should buy favorable therapy, most of California’s previous insurance coverage commissioners have shunned marketing campaign donations from the trade. Lara, too, pledged to not take insurance coverage cash when he ran in 2018.
After information broke that he’d taken the donations, Lara apologized and returned the cash. He’s since reduce ties with the political fundraiser who solicited donations from the insurance coverage trade and says he put new practices in place to vet donors.
However Lara has additionally had different moral lapses throughout a dozen years in public workplace, making a troubling sample.
In 2019, Lara billed taxpayers for sustaining an residence in Sacramento whereas retaining his main residence in Los Angeles, one thing different statewide officers don’t do. He gave up the residence after it hit the information.
In 2013, as a state senator, Lara deliberate a political fundraiser at a Las Vegas on line casino that was lobbying the Legislature to approve a playing compact for a California Indian tribe. The on line casino donated resort rooms, meals and tickets to a mixed-martial arts battle for Lara’s fundraising occasion — which was to happen the identical week senators may vote on the playing compact. Lara canceled the fundraiser after it hit the information.
Lara was proper to vary course when reporters uncovered his questionable selections. However Californians deserve elected officers who will function ethically no matter whether or not their title is within the headlines. For that reason and others, we imagine Assemblymember Marc Levine will make a greater insurance coverage commissioner.
Though they're each Democrats, Lara and Levine have very totally different types as politicians. Lara is a California Democratic Occasion insider who rose by means of the ranks with sturdy ties to labor unions and different highly effective curiosity teams. Levine has an unbiased streak, as proven by his transfer to problem an incumbent Democrat on this race — and in 2012 when he bested one other Democratic incumbent to win a seat within the Meeting.
Throughout his decade within the Legislature, Levine has constructed a fame as a somewhat-prickly however conscientious lawmaker who has proposed payments to tax weapons to fund violence prevention packages, make environmental evaluations obtainable on-line and require authorities companies to retain e mail and different public information for not less than two years. He operates exterior of the Capitol’s social-climber ambiance, and is understood extra for specializing in constituents than for partying with lobbyists in Sacramento.
Levine represents a area north of San Francisco that’s been hit arduous by wildfires. His curiosity in insurance coverage points started in 2017 after the devastating Tubbs fireplace destroyed almost 3,000 properties in Sonoma County. He began to listen to from constituents panicked as a result of their insurance coverage corporations have been refusing to resume their house owner insurance policies, a difficulty that has grown into a disaster in fire-prone elements of the state as conflagrations exacerbated by local weather change grow to be extra frequent and extra harmful. In consequence, he wrote payments meant to forestall owners from changing into under-insured by requiring insurance coverage corporations to ship updates on their property values and to provide companies and owners extra leeway to rebuild in a distinct location following a fireplace.
As insurance coverage commissioner, Lara developed new guidelines that require insurers to low cost insurance policies if owners take steps to mitigate their fireplace threat, equivalent to putting in fire-resistant roofs or clearing flamable vegetation from their properties. However beneath the proposed guidelines, an insurance coverage firm may select to not cowl a house, or a whole subdivision, even when it had been hardened to scale back fireplace threat.
Levine says he’s going additional to assist shoppers by writing laws requiring insurance coverage corporations to subject insurance policies to owners who do such mitigation work.
Levine additionally says he would go additional than Lara has in utilizing the insurance coverage commissioner’s authority to battle local weather change. Insurance coverage corporations can assist fossil gas manufacturing in two methods: by insuring particular initiatives, equivalent to a pure fuel effectively or oil extraction web site, and by investing in fossil gas companies. After dealing with stress from environmental and shopper advocates, Lara just lately launched a new database exhibiting how a lot insurance coverage corporations are investing in fossil fuels. Levine says he would push to make insurance coverage corporations report much more data, such because the carbon emissions from fossil gas initiatives they underwrite and whether or not their requests to boost charges are tied to losses on fossil gas investments.
The race additionally contains Robert Molnar, a high aide to former Insurance coverage Commissioner Steve Poizner who's operating with out social gathering choice; Democrat Vinson Eugene Allen, a medical physician who owns a sequence of pressing care clinics; and a number of other lesser-known candidates who've by no means held elected workplace.
Levine stands out from the pack because the candidate who will greatest look out for shoppers and the planet.
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