California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has traveled extensively, including to overseas destinations, at taxpayer expense — and not always with a clear work purpose, according to an investigative report by KGO-7.
The issue arose earlier this month when Lara turned up at a conference in Bermuda with industry executives, rather than at a state legislative hearing, as thousands of homeowners are still waiting for help after the Los Angeles fires.
KGO, the San Francisco-area ABC News affiliate reported Monday:
7 On Your Side obtained and analyzed hundreds of public records that detail at least 46 cross-country and international trips all over the world — including at least 11 taxpayer-funded excursions to places like Bogota, Paris, and Toronto. But after more than a month of questioning his office, Lara’s staff has been unable to identify the business purpose for nearly all of them.
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7 On Your Side’s Stephanie Sierra investigated hundreds of public records dating back to 2019 that detail a pattern of international trips at various luxury hotels. Our team found Lara’s been absent for at least seven other state insurance hearings since assuming office because he was either traveling abroad, cross-country, or chose not to attend.
For example, expense reports show during his first year in office in 2019, Commissioner Lara missed two insurance hearings while he was traveling to Washington, D.C. and Florida for conferences. In between those trips, he took a $6,000 trip to Paris for an “Economic Development Conference.” Taxpayers picked up that bill.
Lara responded to criticism from a Democratic congressman recently that he was tired of being “white mansplained on how to do my job.”
Lara is being blamed for the flight of insurance companies from the state in recent years, and the cancelation of existing home insurance policies in the weeks and days before the fire, due to his refusal to allow companies to raise rates to account for future risk, under authority his office was given by Proposition 103 of 1988.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
