Think back: When was the last time you heard the former occupant of an important political office, state or national, say publicly that a successor of the same political party wasn’t doing the job well and should be ousted?
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If your answer is “never,” that would be correct. Jerry Brown has never criticized Gavin Newsom. During Donald Trump’s first term as president, neither George W. Bush nor his father, George H.W. Bush, said much about Trump’s performance.
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Richmond and Fairfield, has changed that script, though. The eight-term Congressmember from the state’s 8th District (which now includes parts of Contra Costa and Solano counties) and the state’s original elected insurance commissioner (he served from 1991 to 1995), Garamendi is sickened by what he’s seeing from Ricardo Lara, the fellow Democrat who now holds the office.
He looked on silently for six years as Lara first took political contributions from the insurance companies he regulated, then was forced to return them. He also said nothing when Lara began kowtowing to those same companies by approving extra-high premium increases.
He’s had it now, though. Garamendi told a Bay Area television station that Lara “should go” if he’s unwilling to battle those same insurance companies.
Lara also is demonstrably not willing to bite the hand that feeds him, the hand he’s not supposed to hold in any affectionate way so long as he’s in the office he now holds.
For example, when the insurance rates on a building directly next to a fire station in the hilly town of Portola Valley were raised 50% this year, Lara neither said nor did anything to prevent it, even though its very location makes that structure about as fire-safe and risk-free as any place could be.
Garamendi pointed out that Lara, while a candidate in 2018, pronounced himself “leery” of insurance rate hikes unless customers were getting something in return, such as more extensive coverage or guarantees of renewal.
That’s all gone by the wayside, though. Lara has finalized a plan to let insurance companies assess massive rate increases even in areas with no significant fire danger without making the concessions he had promised to require.
For example, he promised earlier this year that insurance companies would have to cover 85% of homes in wildfire areas (where policy cancellations have lately been rampant) in exchange for significantly higher rates. However, the regulation he issued said that companies can instead opt to cover only 5% more homeowners than they do now.
“The commissioner lied,” according to the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group. “And companies don’t even have to meet that 5% threshold; they can opt out … if they want,” added the group’s president, Jamie Court.
Lara’s response was to say new rates will “reflect the risks of where we’re living.” That’s not true, either, though, since all homeowners will pay more, even if they don’t live in fire areas.
“Any fire would have to cross an awful lot of city before it got to me, but my rates are going up anyway,” said one Santa Monica policy holder who has never filed a fire claim in more than 45 years of homeownership.
She is not alone. Meanwhile, some owners of city properties in sections of San Francisco with many older homes that have been remodeled in recent years (like Noe Valley and the Mission District) have seen their policies canceled even though few claims have been made in those districts.
That led Garamendi to say that “Over the last three years, I have observed that this commissioner is not willing to take the hard task and the necessary task to stand up to the insurance industry. If the commissioner is not willing to do that … then he’s not doing his job, and he should leave.”
In short, the pioneering insurance regulator Garamendi is saying “Lara must go.”
There’s no sign of that, though. As a candidate, Lara said that he was running because “California needs a strong defender, one who will stand up to bullies.”
Lara’s predecessor finds that he hasn’t come close to doing that, though. This leads to an almost unprecedented political scene, with one Democratic party stalwart telling another to depart.
Email Thomas Elias at [email protected], and read more of his columns online at californiafocus.net.