And now, another lengthy post as Decs&Excs makes a foray into investigative journalism:
Yesterday, I began reporting on Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi's allegation that he was being "blackmailed" by representatives of the insurance industry, and his ensuing demand for state and federal investigation. I opined that what the Commissioner was describing as "attack ads" -- which are, we must recall, distasteful but not at all unlawful in themselves -- might in fact be communications criticizing or disagreeing with the Commissioner's policies at a time when, coincidentally, he is running for Lieutenant Governor. Upon further inquiry, I am increasingly inclined to that view, and to the suspicion that the Commissioner's hyperbolic characterizations and his demands for law enforcement intervention are directed more to silencing opposing points of view than they are to tracking down actual unlawful activity.
Exhibit "A" would have to be the website of Californians to Stop Unfair Rate Increases [CSURI]: http://www.stopunfairrates.org/index.html. That site makes no secret at all about its intentions to defeat the Commissioner's proposals to abolish "ZIP Code rating" of auto insurance policies, and states its premise plainly on its homepage:
Tell Insurance
Commissioner John
Garamendi to STOP his
department's unfair
regulation that would
raise our rates.A new regulation from the
Department of Insurance would
arbitrarily and unfairly reduce rates
in big cities, but increase rates for
the rest of us.
In support of its argument, the site cites figures from a "Department of Insurance study" showing that by mandating that driving record be given more weight than the location at which the insured vehicle is principally located, the regulations would lower insurance rates in five primarily urban counties while increasing rates, in many cases by more than 20 percent, in the remainder of the state. The least populous counties would receive the largest increases. (I plan to look into the provenance of that "study," to confirm or deny the accuracy of these characterizations.)
What does CSURI seek as an alternative?
Rather than focusing time and resources on new regulations to increase costs for millions of California drivers, the department should spend more time focusing on two real problems for our state – uninsured drivers and insurance fraud, two major problems that are driving up insurance rates for everyone.
(Emphasis added.)
My principal quarrel with the presentation and the CSURI site is that it is not so forthcoming as it could be in disclosing that there is in fact significant insurance industry money behind it. The site's "Who We Are" page lists a number of public officials from the most-affected counties and several taxpayer and business groups, but no insurers or insurance industry organizations. On the other hand, CSURI's initial press release calls CSURI a "diverse group of local elected officials, chambers of commerce, tax groups and insurance companies" and the industry has not been making any particular secret of its involvement with this campaign in press reports, such as the Insurance Journal story quoted here yesterday.
- Note: Calling oneself a "diverse coalition" is standard practice/camouflage for almost every advocacy group in California, regardless of the issue. Most recently, California election watchers raised their eyebrows over the "diverse coalition" engaging in "independent" advertising expenditures on behalf on Phil Angelides in his effort to obtain the Democratic nomination for Governor. The supposed "coalition" of firefighters, nurses, etc., was in fact funded almost entirely by a Sacramento-area real estate developer, Angelo Tsakopoulos, and his family. It ain't pretty, but electoral politics works that way wherever one looks these days.
Where are the "attack ads" that have so upset the Commissioner? So far, they are not in evidence, although CSURI's site incorporates a draft script [PDF] of a television advertisement that would, on a county-by-county basis, reiterate the basic theme that the proposed regulations will lower rates for those undeserving city dwellers while raising rates in [insert name of your bucolic rural county here].
Throughout the CSURI site, one finds John Garamendi being criticized by name. In nearly every instance, however, he is referred to as "Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi," i.e., in his official capacity. His aspirations to become Lieutenant Governor are, so far as I can tell, never referred to either directly or by implication. And the Commissioner can hardly object to the proposed regulations being characterized as "his" given his longstanding practice (of which I have complained before) of claiming virtually every act of the Department of Insurance as his very own in the ongoing flurry of Departmental press releases.
So I repeat: based on the evidence I have been able to turn up so far, the Commissioner's "blackmail" scheme is in truth nothing more controversial than the entirely lawful expression of views with which the Commissioner, in good faith, does not agree. The actual "crime" here is the purely metaphorical offense of a prominent public official, protected by the privileges that come with elected office, essentially defaming an entire industry and attempting to silence legitimate criticism.
More to come as this story plays out.
Postscript: Here Comes Harvey...
On a Proposition 103-related controversy like this one, it will come as no surprise that Commissioner Garamendi's critique of his critics as criminals is being echoed by Prop. 103's primary architect, Harvey Rosenfield. In an opinion piece in today's Los Angeles Times, Rosenfield tries to leverage the Commissioner's charges in support of another of his pet issues, campaign finance reform:
By exposing the disease at the heart of our political system, Garamendi's announcement is likely to generate support for the cure: a voter initiative headed for the November ballot that would slash the influence of special interest money. It would cap corporate campaign contributions, including to initiative campaigns, and set up publicly funded elections.
Mr. Rosenfield is apparently following this story via weblogs. He -- or someone using his name -- left a comment on this post at Jonathan Stein's decidedly insurer-unfriendly California Personal Injury and Insurance Blog. (As to the substance of Jonathan's post: criticism of disgraced former Commissioner Quackenbush is generally well taken, and I will offer additional comment on the wisdom, or not, of having an elected Insurance Commissioner in an upcoming post.)
Decs&Excs would also welcome Mr. Rosenfield's comments, and yours.
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