Declarations and Exclusions

Cruzin' for a Bruisin'? -- Momentum and Endorsements May Favor Poizner for Insurance Commissioner

With Election Day fewer than three weeks away, this is as good a time as any to revisit the race for California Insurance Commissioner.

California in this election cycle seems to be home to the very model of a modern disengaged electorate.  There is no sense of any general enthusiasm or even focus on any of the races for statewide office.  It says something about the voters' lack of interest that in a predominantly Democratic state, the Democratic candidate for Governor can campaign in Democrat-heavy West Hollywood accompanied by his party's most recent candidate for President and still draw only 75 people to the rally.  (This may also reflect on the hapless nature of the Angelides campaign, but my sense is that a broad voter malaise is a major factor.)

Under these conditions, you can imagine that the race to become California's next elected Insurance Commissioner is not getting any major play.  All signs, though, seem to point in a surprising direction: the prospect that Californians may elect a Republican with a strong business background to what is generally postured as a "consumer protection" position.

To recap, the leading party candidates for Insurance Commissioner are, for the Democrats, Cruz Bustamante -- currently Lieutenant Governor looking, as is true of virtually every other Democrat in statewide office, for a fresh position as he is term-limited out -- and, for the Republicans, Steve Poizner, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and associate of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Decs&Excs previewed the race in late July, comparing and contrasting the candidates' websites, with Mr. Bustamante coming out the loser.  Since then, Bustamante has acquired an actual campaign website, but Google searches such as "bustamante insurance commissioner" are still more likely to lead you to his weight loss site, "Start with Cruz."  (I suppose, the appealing rhyme notwithstanding, calling the site "Lose With Cruz" would have sent the wrong message.)

A quick look at the Bustamante endorsements page tells an interesting story.  Better than 80% of the endorsements listed come from labor unions, as reliable a Democratic constituency as this state can produce.  But there is, notably, only one newspaper on the list: the Bay Guardian, San Francisco's leading "alternative" newsweekly.  The Guardian's endorsement is at best lukewarm, and is based on two areas over which the Insurance Commissioner has only limited control: workers' compensation rates and the quest for "single-payer"/universal health coverage.  There is, also notably, only one other statewide Democratic figure listed among Bustamante's endorsers: current state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.  Lockyer, however, who is himself running comfortably ahead in the race for state Treasurer, is proving to be not the most enthusiastic supporter Bustamante could wish.  (Link via California Insider.)

To the extent they count for anything, all of the major newspapers in the state have been throwing their endorsements to Steve Poizner, often for the reason that they find themselves actively unimpressed with Cruz Bustamante. From the Los Angeles Times:

When [Bustamante] ran for governor in the campaign to recall Gray Davis, he misused donations from Indian tribes and was heavily fined.  As a candidate for insurance commissioner, he accepted insurer contributions, then returned them when it became a campaign issue.  It was not a proud day for Democrats when it became clear that he would be their nominee. His election would be a step backward for consumers.

Similar observations have been voiced by the San Jose Mercury News, the Sacramento Bee ["Bustamante touts his experience in office (six years in the Legislature, plus eight years in the ineffectual post of lieutenant governor), but he hasn't impressed during that time."], and even the reliably Democratophilic San Francisco Chronicle:

Their debate before our editorial board . . . accentuated the differences between these two candidates.  Poizner was clearer in his priorities, more conversant in the details of the issues and more persuasive in making the case that he will be an advocate for consumer interests.

The LATimes, incidentally, has since reported that Bustamante has hedged a bit on those promises to return insurer contributions:

Just before the June primary election, Bustamante, facing criticism for taking insurance money, announced that he would repay such contributions, then estimated at $158,000.  He has since given some of that money back and used some to reduce an old campaign debt.

Meanwhile, he has accepted new donations from groups affected by an insurance commissioner's actions: companies that sell home warranty policies; attorneys and healthcare providers involved in workers' compensation cases; bail bond companies — which are regulated by the state Department of Insurance — and lawyers who represent insurance companies before the state.

And it is not just newspapers whose endorsement Bustamante might have expected but has not received.  The prime mover behind Proposition 103 -- the initiative that radically revamped California insurance ratemaking and that made the Commissioner an elective office -- Harvey Rosenfield has thrown his support to Steve Poizner:

Rosenfeld [sic] said Poizner's agreement to strictly enforce Prop. 103, along with his pledge not to take insurance company money either during the campaign or while in office sealed the deal.

'The contrast between the two candidates could not be more vivid,' he said. '. . . At best [Bustamante is] treating the campaign as a lark and at worst he's in the pocket of the insurance industry.'

        * * *

Rosenfeld also said Bustamante's campaign, which focused on his weight loss during the primary, was disrespectful to voters.  'His campaign is thin on substance and fat on insurance industry contributions,' Rosenfeld said.

Decs&Excs has been critical of Harvey Rosenfield in the past (various examples linked here, with more to come no doubt) but he went to the trouble of sending a personal e-mail to alert me to his endorsement of Poizner. 

Consumer-oriented insurance law blogger Jonathan Stein threw his support to Poizner on Tuesday of this week.  Jonathan has also prepared a helpful overview of all of the candidates for Commissioner, including those from the "minor" parties, noting that only one among them -- Libertarian actuary (!) Dale F. Ogden -- actually possesses practical knowledge concerning the insurance industry.

The last widely circulated public polling on the Commissioner's race dates back to late August and showed Bustamante and Poizner in a statistical dead heat (albeit with Bustamante slightly in the lead).  Will Poizner's endorsements, campaign advertisements and momentum carry him into office?  As they say in the journalism racket, time will tell.  As will Decs&Excs in about three weeks.

Two Great Distastes That Go Great Together: The Los Angeles Times on the Governor and the Insurance Industry

There are at least two California institutions to which the Los Angeles Times has shown consistent antipathy: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the insurance industry.  Imagine, then, the pleasure in at least some journalistic circles when the Times was able to publish an article in this past Sunday's edition with the headline:

Insurers Liking the Coverage of Schwarzenegger's Policies

The stated premise of the article appears in its opening sentences:

With a onetime State Farm official and a former insurance lobbyist in top staff jobs, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is repeatedly siding with insurers in legislative battles as they maneuver to fend off fees, fines and concessions to policyholders.

A veteran insurance lobbyist, Dan Dunmoyer, is now the governor's deputy chief of staff, helping to craft his entire policy portfolio.  Former State Farm official Kathleen Webb is Schwarzenegger's insurance advisor, vetting insurance-related bills that reach his desk and recommending which he should sign into law.

The unexamined assumptions in those sentences, and throughout the article, are many.  Chief among them is that anything the insurance industry favors must be, by definition, against the public interest, or at least counter to the interest of "consumers."  After all, if there were nothing inherently threatening to the greater good in positions favored by insurers, the fact that those positions are (ostensibly) receiving a sympathetic hearing in Sacramento would not be cause for alarm.

The article as a whole is less a piece of reporting than it is an exercise in innuendo and opinion couched as reporting.  Perhaps the most glaring example appears in this single-sentence paragraph midway through:

Now Schwarzenegger has elevated insurance interests to senior levels of his government, giving them too much influence, in the view of consumer groups.

Certainly, it is not "news" that self-styled consumer groups would hold that view.  What would be news, and what is notably absent from the article as a whole, would be actual evidence that insurance interests are being favored, if at all, for reasons other than the Governor's well-known general inclination to favor a broad range of pro-business positions.  Schwarzenegger was elected as a Republican, after all, albeit not a rigidly conservative one.  It is not to be expected that he would fill his advisory posts with actively anti-business personnel.

What hard evidence does the Times offer for its essential premise that insurance industry influence in the Governor's office crosses the line to become "too much" influence?  Very little:

• When insurance-related bills have come to him, the Governor "has sided with — or at least not opposed — the industry nearly nine times in 10, a review of 56 bills tracked by insurance groups shows."  The details of those 56 bills are not provided; a sidebar identifies only 6, and a seventh is referenced in the body of the article.  The Times itself thus omits "nearly nine in ten" of the bills that it considers evidence of the Governor's pro-insurer bias, but nonetheless concludes (in the introductory sentence to that sidebar) that the Governor "has overwhelmingly sided with the insurance industry on legislation affecting it."  (Emphasis added; hyperbole in original.)

• Incidentally, of the 7 bills actually identified in the article, most came to the Governor's desk before the elevation of the insurance-related officials mentioned in its opening paragraph.

• Consumer advocates complain on the one hand that they have not been included in the consultative process.  They concede, however, that they really haven't tried to be included.  They say they have "'seen no point'" in contacting the Governor's insurance adviser, for example, because "'it's assumed that under this administration'" their influence won't be felt.  Alternatively, they insist that it is not their place to take the lead in seeking to be heard -- to send in their own lobbyists to counter industry lobbyists -- and that they are entitled to be the recipients of "'outreach'" from the administration.

• Insurance industry expenditures on lobbying and on contributions to the Schwarzenegger reelection campaign are mentioned, but no evidence is supplied in support of the unspoken premise that those expenditures are buying undue influence.  Insurance interests are reported to have contributed $4.4 million to the Schwarzenegger campaign -- since he announced his candidacy in the recall election of 2003.  An impressive number, to be sure, but many questions about it are left unanswered, such as: (1) How does it compare to the contributions from any other industry or group?  (2) How much are the consumer groups, and others, contributing to Schwarzenegger opponents?  In other words, is there something about the insurers' contributions that have gained them more influence than comparable contributions?  What is there to show that insurers' special interests are now "more special" than others?

• To place that $4.4 million figure in perspective, consider that just one man and his immediate family -- Sacramento real estate developer Angelo Tsakopoulos -- contributed nearly twice that much -- $8.7 million -- in the recent Democratic gubernatorial primary in support of the eventual nominee, current state Treasurer Phil Angelides.  Many believe that Tsakopoulos' expenditures made the difference in Angelides' battle with Democratic rival Steve Westly.

• The one vetoed bill that is discussed at length in the article seems to have been selected so as to portray insurers, and the Governor, as cold and heartless sorts who single out good-deed-doers for particular abuse:

Terry Tillery earns $10 an hour working for a state program aimed at helping sick and elderly people remain in their homes.  The Sacramento resident cares for three patients, driving her 2000 Ford minivan to supermarkets and drugstores for food and medication.

One day in 2004, she got a letter from her auto insurance company: Her rates would be going up.  Her job put her in the same commercial category as a pizza delivery driver, her insurer said, making her a higher-risk driver.

Tillery said she told her insurance company, 'I don't speed.  My driving record is good, and I haven't had any tickets in the last 14 years.'

Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo) offered a bill last year that would have barred insurers from raising rates in circumstances like Tillery's. Among the measure's opponents was the Assn. of California Insurance Cos., which represents 300 property-casualty firms.

Lawmakers passed the bill, but the governor vetoed it. If rates dropped for these workers, his veto message said, echoing arguments made by insurers, then other motorists would be forced to pay more.

The bill in question -- AB 778 [PDF] -- amended Insurance Code section 11580.1, the statute specifying the provisions that are either mandatory or prohibited in every automobile policy in the state, to prohibit treating vehicles used in the single state program employing Ms. Tillery as "a common carrier, livery or for-hire vehicle".  That is, it singled out some drivers traveling about and making pick-ups and deliveries in their vehicles in a business and declared that they could not be treated in the same way as every other driver engaging in those same activities and exposing themselves to the same inherent risks in their businesses.  While the Governor's veto can be characterized, as it is by the Times, as showing favoritism to a position favored by insurers, the bill itself can be characterized as compelling the insurers to show favoritism to a small subset of their policyholders.  The interests on both sides are arguably "special."  Governors always favor one interest over another in signing and vetoing legislation; that the Times would obviously favor a different interest than the Governor did is not particularly compelling evidence of the sort of sinister dealings the article tries so hard to suggest.

No matter who is in power at any given moment Sacramento is just like any other state capitol, a bubbling brew of competing policies each with its own advocates.  Every group believes that only its view is the "right" one and there is always a tendency to assume foul play when another group gets its way.  Sometimes, foul play really is at the root of things and a particular group's influence on its favored issues becomes "too much" influence.  Newspapers such as the Times can and should seek out those instances and expose them.  Even under the loose evidentiary standards of investigative journalism, this article simply does not make its case.

~~~

UPDATE: Mike the Actuary comments and raises the interesting question of whether Governor Schwarzenegger's alleged fondness for insurers acts as a counterweight to the well-known hostility of outgoing Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi toward the industry.  I have an update on the race for Insurance Commissioner in the works, and I will try to address some of Mike's points in that context.

Election 2006: Steve and Cruz Get Even

Fresh developments from the major party campaigns to become California's next Insurance Commissioner:

• The Field Poll, generally deemed the most reputable and reliable of California polls, has released its first overview of the state of the non-gubernatorial November electoral races.   Unsurprisingly, the Democratic candidates currently hold significant leads over their Republican opponents in the run for  the higher profile positions such as Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and Treasurer.   The contest of most interest to this weblog, for Insurance Commissioner, is significantly closer.   As Bill Bradley reports, Cruz Bustamante holds a lead over Steve Poizner, but it is slim enough to count as a statistical dead heat at 43% to 39%. 

• Decs&Excs continues to search for some definitive statement of the candidates' positions on the issues.  The closest approach so far may be this San Diego Union-Tribune article from June.  Its sub-head -- "Two don't have must experience" -- says a lot about the state of insurance regulation in California, and it is perhaps telling that the article devotes a long paragraph to Bustamante's past campaign finance indiscretions. (More on that subject below.)

Here the Union-Tribune offers a fleeting glimpse into the candidates' agendas:

Bustamante wants to consolidate the state's regulation of workers compensation and health care insurance under a single agency, preferably the Department of Insurance.

Poizner also has plans for health care insurance and fraud.  He wants to take a serious look at converting medical records, now kept largely on paper, to secure electronic files.  The transition could save millions that could be passed on in lower health care insurance premiums, he said.

* * *

Both candidates also will have to take a stance on Proposition 103's undelivered promise to reduce the significance of ZIP codes and make individual driving records the dominant factor in rates.

Poizner said he opposes the industry's reliance on ZIP codes, but does not support new guidelines Garamendi has proposed to minimize the weight of ZIP codes in the formula.  Bustamante said he was still analyzing Garamendi's regulations.

Decs&Excs will join Mr. Bustamante in analyzing those regulations -- now approved for implementation by the state Office of Administrative Law -- in a forthcoming post.

• The conventional wisdom since Bustamante announced his candidacy has been of the "good news - bad news" variety: The good news is that he has much higher name recognition than Steve Poizner; the bad news is that Bustamante is well known in largely negative ways, having first turned his back on Democratic governor Gray Davis by running to replace him if/when he was recalled and then having been beaten convincingly by Arnold Schwarzenegger for Davis' job.   A Field Poll summary last November remarked:

A recall campaign for governor didn't help Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who's running for insurance commissioner.  He's known by 73 percent of the voters, but more than half of those voters, 38 percent, have an unfavorable opinion of him.

• One area in which the candidates are not even is their campaign coffers.  The most current campaign finance information on the Secretary of State's site shows that as of June 30 the official Bustamante campaign had $387,988.17 on hand, while the official Poizner campaign committee boasted a rather more impressive $2,431,062.11. 

Where is the money coming from?  Not for the most part from the insurance industry.  Insurers' public images are sufficiently negative in California that taking money from them while campaigning to obtain regulatory authority over them is not encouraged.  Cruz Bustamante, who took plentiful heat during his gubernatorial run for the large sums he accepted from Native American gaming interests, was accepting insurance company money early on, but was shamed into giving much of it back prior to the Democratic primary in June.  Steve Poizner, meanwhile, has repeatedly disavowed any intention of accepting contributions from insurance sources -- easily done, given that he is in a position to infuse large sums of personal cash into his campaign if needed.

• UPDATE [1305 PDT]:  The Poizner campaign has wasted no time in distributing an e-mail spinning Bustamante's modest lead as a sign of vulnerability.  I have uploaded a copy, accessible via this link [HTML document].   Among other reports quoted in the release is a Sacramento Bee column from Dan Walters, pointing out that vocally conservative Republican candidates are all lagging well behind their Democratic opponents while more moderate Republicans -- such as Poizner -- are within striking distance or even, in the special case of Governor Schwarzenegger, running well ahead.

Election 2006: The Weigh-In is the Way Through

Following current California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi as he bareknuckled his way to the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor proved so aggravating that Decs&Excs suspended posting for a month after the June primary election.  Now, with the November general election little more than three months away, the time has come to begin covering an even more draining topic: the race to become Garamendi's successor.

Let's begin today with a simple Internet-based experiment.

The major party candidates for Insurance Commissioner are Republican entrepreneur Steve Poizner and the current Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Cruz Bustamante.  If we search each man's name through Google, what do we find about these candidates as candidates?  (All results below are as of late July, 2006.  Given the fluid nature of Google, those results are likely to vary in future.)

At the top of the results page for a Google search for Steve Poizner, we find what we would expect to find: two links, one "sponsored" and one free range, to Poizner's official campaign website, JoinSteve.com.  The version of the site that exists as of this writing is actually less informative than the site the campaign maintained while Poizner was running, essentially unopposed, for the Republican nomination.  As of today, there is no substantive information at the site, only an opportunity to sign up for e-mail updates -- be warned, Mr. Poizner, I am on your list now -- and a page for making contributions to the campaign.  Otherwise, the site is under construction and the campaign asks that we "check back soon."

Moving to the next stage in our experiment, what do we find if we run a Google search for Cruz Bustamante?

The first result, perhaps not surprisingly, is a link to the State of California's official site for the Office of the Lt. Governor.  In contrast to the approach of Commissioner Garamendi, who has not hesitated to posture himself for his run for Lieutenant Governor in official press releases from the Department of Insurance, there is no evidence on the Lieutenant Governor's website that Bustamante is running for any other office.  In fact, the site as a whole is a bare-bones effort, perhaps reflecting the conventional wisdom that the post of Lieutenant Governor of California is good for little more than setting its occupant up to run for some other, more interesting office.

To return to Google: search though you might, through several pages of results, you will not find a link to a site for Cruz Bustamante's campaign for Insurance Commissioner.  (In a nice touch, however, it appears that the Poizner campaign has made the necessary arrangements to have its own sponsored link appear in the right hand column of the Bustamante results page.)

How are potential Bustamante supporters to find their way to their candidate online?  Perhaps the site of the California Democratic Party can help.  The party's "Election 2006" page does include a list of the Democratic candidates for statewide office, each with a hyperlink to the candidate's site.  Here one can find links to Democratic campaigns for Governor (Phil Angelides), for Attorney General (the return of Jerry Brown!) and, of course, for Lieutenant Governor (He Who Need Not Be Named).

And where are we led if we click the name of Cruz Bustamante?  Click it yourself and see:

"Start with Cruz"

Not an election campaign website at all, "Start with Cruz" chronicles the candidate's personal campaign . . . to lose weight. 

Just prior to the June primary, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez provided a blow by blow account of his shameless ambushing of candidate Bustamante:

Cruz Bustamante was in town last week, making a quick pass as election day drew closer.  If you've lost track of the musical chairs in Sacramento, he's the portly, termed-out lieutenant governor who's hoping to become state insurance commissioner.

His major selling point is a campaign promise to lose 50 pounds, and the devil in me invited him to lunch at Barragan's Mexican Restaurant & Cantina in Echo Park.  Yes, that's a bit like inviting a recovering drinker to a beer festival, but I wanted to see what Bustamante is made of.

* * *

I told him I had seen him on television talking about weight loss, and I just wondered how the diet was coming.  He began the year having porked up to 278 pounds, but in his defense, the job of lieutenant governor isn't much of a workout.  The biggest tasks on any given day are to go to lunch and then try to stay awake the rest of the day.

At his last weigh-in two weeks earlier, he had gotten down to 235, putting him seven pounds short of his goal.

'I weighed 233 this morning at the hotel,' he said as I reached for the menu and began perusing the appetizers.  Probably down to 232 by now, he bragged.

I nodded agreeably.

And then, the trap is sprung as Lopez reaches into his bag and produces . . . . 

Actually, you should read that part for yourself.  [Reg. req'd].

All of this frolicsome banter is really just the first tentative sounding of what is likely to be Decs&Excs' recurrent theme as the campaign proceeds: Neither of the major parties' candidates for Insurance Commissioner is particularly qualified for the job. 

Neither candidate has any personal or professional background relating to insurance, whether as friend to or foe of the industry they propose to regulate.  Neither, I suspect, wants the post of Commissioner for its own sake: Bustamante is only seeking the position because (1) he is termed-out as Lieutenant Governor, (2) he has already been defeated once (in the Gray Davis recall election) by Governor Schwarzenegger, and (3) it was some other prominent Democrat's turn to run for every other statewide office.  For his part Poizner -- last seen heading up the unsuccessful campaign for the legislative redistricting initiative in the Governor's disastrous Special Election of 2005 -- has to start somewhere in his quest for statewide office and the Commissioner's job was going to be open.

It is possible, of course, that one or both of these men will rise to the occasion at some point as Election Day approaches, addressing himself directly and intelligently to the complex practical and policy issues inherent in regulating the insurance industry.  Until that day, however, skepticism will remain the prevailing attitude on this weblog and Decs&Excs' motto will be, to paraphrase Shelley,

"Look on these candidates, ye voters, and despair."

C'est la Guerreamendi

Tomorrow brings us at last to the California primary election, so this will be the last of my reports on Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi's run for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor.  No doubt the Commissioner will continue to hold our attention here as he finishes out his term, and particularly as he pushes along his regulations to re-tool the factors permitted to be used in pricing automobile insurance.  On the electoral front, Decs&Excs will look to November, and begin coverage of the two nominees to replace Mr. Garamendi as Insurance Commissioner: Republican entrepreneur Steve Poizner and the expected Democratic candidate, current Lieutenant Governor and weight loss advocate Cruz Bustamante.

Many thanks to Walter Olson for his post at PointofLaw.com declaring Decs&Excs to be "Garamendi's blog nemesis," and weclome PointofLaw readers.  For those who need to catch up on the backstory in this electoral drama, please start at the bottom of the Decs&Excs Politics of Insurance - Campaign 2006 archive and scroll forward to the present day. 

And now, our final preelection report:

When is a Campaign Ad Not a Campaign Ad?

Throughout the Primary race to date, polls have consistently shown John Garamendi in the lead in the campaign for the nomination for Lieutenant Governor.  Given how large the pool of undecided voters has been, Garamendi's lead has probably been a result of his being a fixture of California statewide politics for so long: he simply had better name recognition than his opponents Jackie Speier and Liz Figueroa, who have been working the relative obscurity of the state Senate. 

Garamendi's previous poll lead notwithstanding, it has been Speier picking up the major endorsements from newspapers and important Democratic figures such as Senators Feinstein and Boxer.  Garamendi's biggest-name endorser is Al Gore, with whom Garamendi worked during his stint with the Department of the Interior in the Clinton-Gore Administration.

Beyond endorsements, Jackie Speier has also had the largest campaign war chest, and for the past several weeks has been running a pair of statewide television spots -- one focused on her accomplishments as a legislator, the other focusing on her personal story and her overcoming of severe injuries sustained in the shootout preceding the People's Temple mass suicides at Jonestown, Guiana, in 1978.  The combination of spending and endorsements seems to be paying off: the final preelection Field Poll [PDF] released this past weekend reports:

In the contested Democratic primary for Lt. Governor, State Senator Jackie Speier has pulled ahead of State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi and State Senator Liz Figueroa.  The current poll finds Speier the choice of 30% of likely Democratic primary voters, with Garamendi at 25% and Figueroa far behind at 8%. More than one in three voters (37%) are undecided.  The current findings are a reversal of voter preferences from April when Garamendi held the lead over Speier.

Bill Bradley's invaluable New West Notes political weblog reported on Friday that the Speier campaign has also filed a complaint against the Commissioner before the state Fair Political Practices Committee, accusing the Garamendi campaign of making an end run around campaign spending limits through the formation of the so-called "Ad Hoc Consumer Coalition for Fair Insurance Rates," or AHCCFIR.  (Gesundheit!)  AHCCFIR is running an ad, featuring Commissioner Garamendi, responding to the insurance industry's advertising campaign against the Commissioner's proposed auto insurance rate regulations.

The new ad, while it shows Garamendi prominently, makes no mention of his run for Lieutenant Governor.  The Speier campaign claims the AHCCFIR ad is actually a Garamendi campaign spot because it is being run in heavy rotation in the San Francisco Bay area -- a region of the state in which the insurance industry's ads are not being run (because the urban counties around the Bay are the counties that are likely to reap the benefit of lower rates under the proposed regulations, while rural counties' rates go up.)

In a report on the Bay Area ABC affiliate, KGO, neither Garamendi nor Speier comes off particularly well, as Garamendi tries to change the subject and Speier goes overboard on restricting political speech:

John Garamendi, candidate for Lt. Governor:  'They're not campaign ads.  They are ads that are a direct counter to what the insurance industry is doing.  The insurance industry has $2.5 million dollars out there, attacking me for trying to implement the will of the people.' 

Garamendi also told us he's not at all concerned about the complaint Speier's camp filed over his ad with the state's Fair Political Practices Commission.

John Garamendi, candidate for Lt. Governor: 'I'm not concerned at all.  What I am concerned about is who's side is she on?  Has she said anything about implementing the will of the voters?'

Jackie Speier, candidate for Lt. Governor: 'I think what we're going to have to do with these advocacy groups is prevent them from operating during the last three or four months of a campaign in which the person who's created the committee is campaigning.'

I have been unable to find an online copy of the new Garamendi ad; the video version of the KGO story (reachable through the link above) includes a fleeting excerpt.

Those who have followed the Commissioner's claims that the insurers' advertisements are part of an "extortion" campaign will recall that Garamendi's key objection to the ads is that they would negatively affect his campaign for Lieutenant Governor.  And yet, in response to Speier's complaints, Garamendi now assures us that his own ads covering exactly the same territory as those of the insurance industry (and featuring Garamendi himself as spokesperson for the "ad hoc" committee of "consumers") have nothing whatever to do with his campaign for Lieutenant Governor. 

Here is an easy way to test the question of whether these ads are or are not related to the election: On the day after the primary, when the battle between Garamendi and Speier has been concluded, the dispute over auto insurance rates will still be going on.  Will the AHCCFIR ads still be running?

Hmmmmmm, I wonder . . . .

Special Request to California Readers of Declarations & Exclusions:

The primary campaign has been a sorry spectacle all around.  Don't let that stop you.  Please vote on June 6 for the party and candidates of your choice.  An unexercised franchise gets flabby and useless.  Pump it up, and cast that ballot!

The Commissioner Goes for the Double Negative

Insurance Commissioner Garamendi claims that the insurance industry has launched a "negative ad campaign" against him in his run for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor.  As Decs&Excs has opined previously, the industry's ads (1) aren't all that negative and (2) are directed against the Commissioner's proposed regulations, and not against the Commissioner personally.  (Mr. Garamendi will be out of office at the Department of Insurance at the end of the year whether he becomes Lieutenant Governor or not, so there's little direct benefit in working for his defeat.)

For a real negative ad, one need look no further than this official Garamendi spot targeting his primary opponent, state Senator Jackie Speier.  The Garamendi campaign describes the ad, which manages to "go negative" as to both the insurance industry and Senator Speier, thus:

Our latest television advertisement highlights John Garamendi’s record of taking on the special interests in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.  In contrast, the ad points out that his opponent, State Senator Jackie Speier, has accepted hundreds-of-thousands of dollars from special interests like insurance companies and Enron, while refusing to crack down on corporate criminals.

A nice bit of rhetorical jiu jitsu there, conflating the entire class of  "insurance companies" with Enron and similar "corporate criminals."

The link comes via Bill Bradley’s NEW WEST NOTES, which reports that the Speier campaign is calling the Garamendi ad (no surprise) "misleading."  Says Bradley: "It could make it sound to the casual viewer like [Speier] took hundreds of thousands from Enron, which she did not."  The Speier campaign has posted its response to the ad via California Congressman Mike Thompson.

Even though it is plainly "negative," the Garamendi spot is small beer indeed compared to the sludge being slung in the Democratic primary for Governor, which has descended to such low levels that even prominent Democratic weblogs like Daily Kos are washing their hands of the whole affair.

~~~

Reminder: Decs&Excs' accumulated reporting on the 2006 election hubbub between Commissioner Garamendi and the insurance industry is available for one-stop perusal in the Politics of Insurance - Campaign 2006 archive category.

Rhetorical Heatwave Envelopes California

No one will ever mistake Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi for Theodore Roosevelt, physically or philosophically.   Still, there is a strong temptation to invoke TR-centric clichés such as "big sticks" and "bully pulpits" in pondering the Commissioner's latest moves in his ongoing dispute with the insurance industry over automobile rate regulation.*

Looking for a Certain Ratio

Displeased with the industry's publicity campaign against his proposed regulations, the Commissioner has unleashed a multi-front assault featuring his own press releases, and the threat of further public hearings and additional regulation, to compel insurers to reduce rates in both personal auto and homeowners insurance markets. 

The main fusillade comes in a Press Release issued today:

Commissioner John Garamendi Discloses Apparent 'Excess Profits' by Homeowner and Auto Insurers

SACRAMENTO – Today, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi released a new report on the burgeoning profitability of Homeowners and Private Passenger Automobile Insurance companies.  The study discloses that for the past two years insurance companies have enjoyed a scenario in which the amount they pay for claims has dwindled, while the money they keep has soared.  The Commissioner has scheduled a hearing for July 20, at which he will examine this issue.  The following is his statement:

'For the past two years homeowners and automobile insurance companies in this state have profited immensely at the expense of consumers.  A new study from my office shows that the more money these companies keep from your premiums, the less they pay out in claims.  In my view, Californians are due for a break.  If my understanding of these results is confirmed by my full review and hearing, I am confident that I will be ordering a significant number of insurers to reduce their rates. . . .'

The study to which the release refers bears the benignly non-argumentative title, "Lower Claims, Higher Profits: Where Do Your Premium Dollars Go?" [PDF].  It does not, however, answer the question that its title poses, and gives a very incomplete picture of "profits" of any kind, let alone "excessive" profits.

The focus of the study is on the "loss ratio" reported by various insurers.  The loss ratio for a given period of time is calculated by dividing the insurer's earned premium in to the sum of claims or losses paid and claims-related expenses incurred in that period.  A loss ratio of .67, for instance, indicates that $.67 of every $1.00 of earned premium was spent paying or adjusting claims.

While a lower loss ratio improves an insurer's odds of being profitable, it does not tell the entire story.  In addition to the cost of claims paid on its policies, an insurer must also carry the additional costs of selling, underwriting and administering those policies.  If an insurer went an entire year without having a single claim, it would still have to bear those expenses; the premium received would never, even in the most claim-free year, become "pure profit" because those underwriting expenses would still be incurred.  Those expenses -- the costs of doing business other than loss-related costs and any dividends paid to policyholders (by a mutual insurer) -- are reflected in the "expense ratio," calculated by dividing the earned premium into the total of non-claim/non-dividend expenses.

To more accurately assess profitability, we need to look to the "combined ratio," in which the loss ratio is added together with the expense ratio (and the dividend ratio, if applicable) to provide a total overview of how much of each premium dollar is consumed by necessary costs generally.  If a company's combined ratio is a number less than 1.00, there is something left over the technical term for which is "underwriting profit"; if the ratio is greater than 1.00, then more than one dollar of every premium dollar is being consumed by costs and the insurer experiences an "underwriting loss." 

As exemplified in the charts and statistics in this article and elsewhere, combined ratios of less than 1.00 are the exception, rather than the rule, in the property/casualty insurance business.  Of course, insurers can still wind up ahead, and often do, thanks to their investment income, but profitability based solely on the amount charged to the consumer for the product, the insurance policy, is a relative rarity.  This is especially true with a product such as auto insurance, in which each insurer's policy is largely identical in coverage to every other insurer's policy, so that "low price" becomes the primary point of competition among insurers.

Maybe, just maybe, it is true that the industry is reaping "excessive" profits based on "overcharging" for auto or homeowners policies.  Whether or not that is the case, looking only at loss ratios as the Commissioner's report does, rather than the broader picture provided by combined ratios and other statistics, will not provide the answer to that question -- and the Commissioner should be clever enough to know it.

• [UPDATE 05/27/06:  Doug Simpson on his always excellent weblog, Unintended Consequences, cross-references Commissioner Garamendi's allegations while providing an overview of the issues that are raised by accusations of "excessive" profits in general, with a particular focus on the FTC's recent report on claimed "price gouging" in petroleum markets.  Read it here: "FTC Post-Katrina Gas Price Study Useful Re Other Market-Driven Industries."]

A Pro-Garamendi Editorial Cuts Both Ways

Even before today's Press Release, the Commissioner had added a number of links on the Department of Insurance home page responding to the industry's publicity campaign.  Among them is a page collecting editorials that favor his proposed regulations.  One of them, from the Modesto Bee of March 14, begins in a questioning vein:

What should be the most important criteria for determining how much you pay for auto insurance?

Most people believe their rates should be based on three things: Driving record (tickets, accidents, etc.), miles driven (do you commute or just go for groceries?) and driving experience.

That's why voters passed Proposition 103 in 1988, making those the most important criteria in setting prices for auto insurance.  That proposition should have forced insurance companies to change the way they do business.  But it didn't. . . .

I suspect insurers, too, would "believe" the driving record, etc., should be the primary factor in pricing their product -- if driving record gave an accurate indication of the risk being undertaken.  Unfortunately, the potential for an automobile to be lost, damaged, involved in an accident, etc., is dependent not just on the Very Excellent Driver who owns it, but also on the Not-So-Excellent Motorists with whom that driver shares the road and the Persons With Honesty Issues who might attack it or steal it.  The bigger picture comes out further down the page, where the ModBee editorialist writes:

The insurance companies are making some scary claims about how Garamendi's proposed changes will affect rural ratepayers.  They say the new rules will force rural residents to pay more for insurance so that city residents can pay less.  Such arguments are supposed to resonate in places such as Modesto and Turlock.

That's unlikely.  Modesto's ZIP codes are well-known to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which compiles the auto-theft rankings that Modesto has led for the past two years.  The commissioner's office and the industry each did actuarial studies, which concluded that drivers in only five California counties would see rates go down; Stanislaus [County, in which Modesto is located] was one of the five.

So it seems that even supporters of the proposed regulations agree: No matter what they tell you in the movies, "believing" in a thing doesn't make it so.

* Organization, Man

* Administrative Note: Rather than provide post-by-post links to earlier Decs&Excs coverage of these issues, I have launched a new archive category, "Politics of Insurance - Campaign 2006," in which the continuing saga of Commissioner Garamendi, automobile rate regulation, the 2006 statewide election cycle and related hurly-burly can be followed blow by staggering blow.

Garamonday Morning Update:The Commisioner Speaks and a Bakersfield Broadcaster Succumbs to "Blackmail"

The Commissioner Strikes Back and Speaks Out:

In the previous installment of Decs&Excs' continuing coverage of Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi's allegations of "political extortion" against the insurance industry, I pointed to a Sacramento Bee editorial that opined: "That wasn't a crime. It's called politics, free speech, democracy in the raw."

Yesterday, the Bee provided the Commissioner the opportunity to respond.  He takes rather a different view of the industry's activities.  Because this is the clearest statement yet of the logic by which the exercise of political speech might be viewed as unlawful, it is worth quoting at length:

The auto insurance industry opposes these new rules and has the right to express its opinion.  But the laws of California and the United States prohibit any offer of a quid pro quo deal to influence an official's decision, and that is exactly what the industry offered to me: Delay my plan to enact new auto pricing rules until the next commissioner arrives, or else face a $2 million negative advertising campaign.  This was not, as the industry has suggested, 'a friendly heads up.'  It was an 'either/or' demand and clearly a quid pro quo message.

The negative ads were timed to air in the few short weeks before the June primary election in which I am running for lieutenant governor and during my finalization of the regulations.  The threat was an obvious and desperate effort to stop these new rules by any means necessary.

Even more obviously, this extortion attempt crossed the bounds of acceptable political discourse.

As we have seen in recent months, there is a crisis in American governance.  Political scandals have plagued our state and nation, and elected officials too often have betrayed the trust of voters in exchange for favors.  I won't be a part of that corruption.  And if the insurance industry's extortion attempt is, as you contend, an example of politics as usual, then we have a serious problem in our democracy.  And you should be just as outraged as I am.

Decs&Excs Comments:

• The Commissioner concedes that the insurance industry "has the right to express its opinion," so the supposed crime here has to relate to the industry's decision to tell the Commissioner in advance that it was going to do so.  It is hard to imagine that Garamendi would be any happier with the industry if it had simply begun running the ads without warning.

• The logic of the Commissioner's argument conflates two distinct notions: "extortion" and "quid pro quo."  Both concepts involve trying to influence action by describing the consequences of not taking that action.  In true extortion, the argument is "a bad and unlawful thing will be done to you if you don't do as you're told."  In a true quid pro quo the argument is "we will do something nice (and not necessarily lawful) for you if you do as we're asking."  Extortion involves threats; quid pro quo is essentially a form of bribery, or what the Commissioner refers to as "betray[ing] the trust of voters in exchange for favors."  Does the situation here fit either definition?  Not really.

• There is no true "extortion," because the consequence with which the Commissioner was "threatened" was, as he concedes, conduct that is entirely lawful.

• The supposed "quid pro quo" offered by the insurers was that they would not run the ads if the Commissioner simply did the thing that the ads were intended to persuade him to do.  That is, if the Commissioner made the ads unnecessary, the industry promised it would not waste its money on unnecessary ads.

• The promise or threat made by the insurance industry in Garamendi's version was, ultimately, nothing more offensive than: "If you don't do as we're suggesting, we'll go to the public with our arguments and ask the public to persuade you."

The Ads Begin, the Press Reacts:

Out in the world, the ads themselves have begun to be broadcast: versions hit the airwaves in San Diego and Kern Counties last Tuesday, and in 19 additional counties the following day.

An exemplar version of the ad (targeted particularly at Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties) can be viewed in Windows Media format on the main page at the official site of the insurer-sponsored Californians to Stop Unfair Rate Increases, or you can click here at Decs&Excs to view either the large or small versions of the ad.

Say what you will about the merits of the insurance industry's position, it is more than somewhat of a stretch to call this a "negative" ad -- unless "negative" is defined as "not in agreement with Commissioner Garamendi."  It certainly cannot be characterized as an "attack" ad, which is the way in which it was characterized in the Commissioner's original, Department-endorsed press release.  (We Californians know "attack ads" when we see them, and we are being treated just now to a variety of examples of the form in the sniping between the Democratic contenders for the nomination for Governor.) 

Worse for the Commissioner than being caught in a bit of overstatement is the fact that the ads might actually be working in swaying public opinion.  At least one television station -- the NBC affiliate in Bakersfield -- has produced a story that roundly endorses the insurers' arguments:

BAKERSFIELD - Car insurance rates will likely increase in Kern County if the State's Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi gets his way.

A couple of months ago, the idea was first proposed to increase rates in the valley while rates in the big cities would be lowered.

Now there’s a TV ad campaign opposing the rate hike idea in California’s Central Valley and it’s picking up momentum.

The video version of that report -- which incorporates most of the Kern County version of the insurers' ad -- is accessible at the link above.

Coming Soon:  Decs&Excs reviews the candidates to replace John Garamendi as Insurance Commissioner . . . and shakes its metaphorical head in dismay.

    ~~~

UPDATE [1222 PDT]: 

Now, these are the ads that Commissioner Garamendi should actually be concerned about:

• Bill Bradley's New West Notes reports on the first advertisements by Garamendi's actual opponents in the race for Lieutenant Governor.

Garamendipitously We Roll Along

When last Decs&Excs checked in on Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, he was demanding that the insurance industry be investigated by assorted law enforcement agencies for engaging in "blackmail" and "extortion."  The industry's "crime" consists in daring to challenge the Commissioner's proposed revisions to auto insurance rate regulations -- in part by claiming that the revisions will actually raise auto insurance rates for many non-urban Californians -- at the same time as Garamendi is running for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor.  Prior posts on this subject are below: #1, #2.

Here are some of the latest developments in this story:

• I have been trying to track down the "Insurance Department study" cited by the industry's spokespeople in support of their claims, thus far without success.  I am continuing my inquiries and will report further if I am able to get my hands on the source material.

• The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday published a skeptical editorial suggesting, as I have done, that there is not much of substance in the Commissioner's accusations:

For the public watching all this, it's hard to see the crime here.  People in our democracy, even a powerful special interest, are free to denounce decisions government officials make that they don't like.  It's done all the time.  Ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Public employee unions spent millions to attack him during the last special election.  That wasn't a crime. It's called politics, free speech, democracy in the raw.

Garamendi's letter to the FBI looks like politics too, a creative way to blunt the political attack from the insurance industry that the candidate in a tough race for lieutenant governor knows is coming.

• With the calm demeanor and understated tone for which the Huffington Post is so well known, HuffPo commentator Michelle Kraus concludes that the Garamendi-insurer hubbub is a sign of a broader and more sinister "Republican Grand Plan to Hijack California."

Look carefully, and the specter of the plan coalesces and clarifies before your horrified eyes. . . .

[T]he stage is set for election extortion and blackmail against the current Insurance Commissioner in his race for Lt. Governor.  The insurance companies have decided to pounce upon long-term worthy public servant Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi so that they don't have to deal with him again. . . .

This Commissioner just could not, and would not, turn his back on the people of the state for his own personal gain.  Instead, John Garamendi has continued to fight for the People of California.  He would not stand down and let the People lose money that they deserved.

On May 9th, Garamendi launched an FBI investigation and an investigation by the Attorney General against these insurance carriers for the aforementioned strong arm tactics.  If he is to survive, if he is to be successful so he can continue his life's work as a true Public Servant (remember when that was not an oxymoron?), if we are truly fed up with the fixing of elections, we must rally to his defense, covering his back with our own.  It must stop here!

California Voters - it's time to say no - to election rigging and lobbying by big industry.  It's time to take back the democratic process and fight for a candidate that will not bend.  We need to take back our power and raise our voices and help candidates that are honest like John Garamendi.  Trust me when I tell you that this is not a ploy to gain attention. . . .

Apart from its hair-tearing intensity and occasional outright misstatement -- FBI investigations are "launched," if at all, by the FBI and not by state officials, and the Commissioner's accusations against the insurance industry do not include, as Kraus would have it, "election-fixing"  -- this commentary is remarkable for the amount of pure confusion it deploys.  The insurers' campaign is characterized as somehow part of a wider Republican "plan" to retake control of state government, but its impact will be felt in the Democratic primary election.  If Garamendi is defeated in the upcoming primary, with or without input from the insurance industry, the upshot will not be a Republican filling the office of Lieutenant Governor.  It will be another Democrat, freely chosen by Democrats, running to fill the post -- and probably winning it, given California Republicans' longstanding congenital inability to capture statewide offices other than the Governorship.   (The Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in November will be Tom McClintock, whose deep-dyed conservatism will appeal to the Republican base but will not necessarily appeal to the broader electorate.)

Does Dr. Kraus claim that Democrats should vote for John Garamendi in their primary because he is better qualified than his opponents, state Senators Jackie Speier (who just received the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle, not a particularly GOP-friendly institution) and Liz Figueroa?  She does not.  In a neat bit of misdirection, Dr. Kraus argues that Garamendi should receive all good Democrats' votes for Lieutenant Governor to teach those nasty insurers a lesson, rather than because John Garamendi actually deserves the position on his own merits.

For those who may want to ask her about her commentary in person, Dr. Kraus will be among the hosts of a Garamendi fundraising reception later today in Los Altos.

If This Be Extortion . . . .

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.