In the wake of the horrific California wildfires in January, impacted homeowners not only lost their property, but either had their insurance policies canceled outright, were hit with massive increases in their insurance premiums, or pushed onto the FAIR Plan, the state insurance exchange which forced homeowners to accept less coverage than their homes required. While all this was going down, Insurance Commissioner Richard Lara was too busy traveling around the world on the taxpayer dime to care. 

According to an investigation by ABC7's "7 On Your Side," they obtained and combed through hundreds of public records, uncovering details of at least 46 cross-country and international trips. Lara traveled to 15 different countries, paid for by the California taxpayers, 11 of those taxpayer-funded excursions were to places like Bogota, Paris, and Toronto. More egregious: Lara’s staff could not identify the business purpose for the majority of these trips.

As my colleague Ward Clark reported, "There just isn't any reason for a state insurance commissioner to visit Hawaii, Singapore, Cape Town, Dublin, or Tokyo." Despite Lara's epic failure to ensure the citizens of California's life and property were covered and protected, Lara is still on the job, dictating that his staff can continue their hybrid model of not showing up to the office while other state and Capitol staff are required to come to work. 

Lara himself doesn't appear to be showing up to work, which is no surprise. He has yet to appear before any hearings or committees investigating the state's insurance crisis, like a State Farm Insurance hearing on Tuesday that Lara himself demanded be held. In March, Lara jetted off to Bermuda for the Bermuda Risk Summit, a conference held by executives of insurance and reinsurance agencies, despite the California legislature's request that he sit down with them to hash out how he dropped the ball.

When it comes to California corruption and incompetence, it's always a raging wildfire. In an exclusive investigation from the San Francisco Standard, they pull the lid off more malfeasance and fraud by Lara. The Standard reports that Lara created a shell campaign account two years ago in order to mount a run for California Lt. Governor. Except by all indications and reporting, he never did the due diligence to file with the Secretary of State to run for the office, or did anything to mount an actual campaign. The only thing Lara did was dine out on this shell campaign—literally. 

Now, an investigation by The Standard has found that Lara, with less than two years left in his final term, has been using what appears to be a shell campaign committee to pay for nearly $30,000 in meals and drinks at some of the country’s fanciest restaurants and bars. Almost a third of these charges were listed as campaign meetings, and it’s unclear who Lara has been wining and dining during meals costing hundreds or, in at least one case, more than $1,000.

The Standard further reports,

Lara has never formally announced his intention to run for lieutenant governor, and it does not appear to have been mentioned in news reports. He has completed almost none of the steps to mount a serious campaign and has not talked about plans to run for the second-highest elected office in California, according to sources in state politics.

Through obtained receipts, the Standard reconstructs one of Lara's expensive dinner meetings with Raul Vargas, CEO of Farmers Insurance Group and California’s second-largest home insurer. 

The sun had already set over The Grand, Frank Gehry’s skyscraper complex in downtown Los Angeles, as Ricardo Lara sat down for dinner at San Laurel, a flagship restaurant of famed chef José Andrés that offers sparkling views of the city.

Lara and a guest started with an Americano and a Diet Coke, according to a receipt from the California insurance commissioner’s meal the evening of Jan. 15, 2024. Over the next two and a half hours, Lara and company went on to order delicacies like jamón Iberico, pan con tomate, sea urchin, lobster salpicón, wild mushrooms, a rack of lamb, Andrés’ signature gambas al zahara, a $16 grapefruit, and chocolate mousse.

Lubricating this $700 culinary adventure were two bottles of Leirana Albariño, a white wine from the Rías Baixas region of Spain. 

This may sound rather decadent, but Lara wasn’t personally on the hook. He charged $234 of the tab to a little-known campaign committee he created two years ago to run for lieutenant governor. His special guest picked up the balance. 

Lara has been accused in the past of being far too cozy with the very insurance providers and executives over whom he is supposed to have oversight. In his 2022 re-election campaign, he received massive campaign contributions from the insurance industry, so much so that the San Diego-Union Tribune reported that Lara personally intervened in "at least four proceedings involving a company with ties to insurance executives and their spouses who donated tens of thousands of dollars to his re-election campaign."

Sadly, this is the California Way. Just like Gov. Gavin Newsom's French Laundry debacle during the COVID pandemic, where he wined and dined health officials and executives while the rest of the state was under lockdown and out of work, following your own rules, working to maintain the citizens' trust, and actually doing the work you were elected to do rarely, if ever, happens. Ricardo Lara, along with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom, have become the poster children of gross incompetence and pretentiousness when competency and substance are desperately needed. 

Lara, who came up in the Los Angeles political machine and previously served in the state Assembly and Senate, saw the insurance commissioner post as a steppingstone to higher office when first elected in 2018, according to sources. He became the first openly LGBTQ+ person to be elected to statewide office in California. But the job has turned into a political pitfall as wildfires rage and insurance companies cancel policies and flee the state.

“There is no way in hell that Ricardo could get elected to statewide office right now,” said a Democratic political consultant.

Seriously?! Nobody outside of Sacramento, let alone California, would know the name Ricardo Lara had it not been for this corruption and incompetence. The only reason Lara has achieved anything in politics is that he checked the right intersectional boxes. This is California's horrific political game. The litmus test for an elected role is not your qualifications, but your social and political alignment. 

As more of Lara's glamorous life, paid for by the California taxpayer, gets exposed, Californians may finally be at the point where they demand their candidates and elected leaders not only be qualified, but accountable.