For most of the last eight years, California consumers benefited
from turning to high public officials when they could prove they
were being victimized by unfair business practices or other
predatory pricing.
For most of the last eight years, California consumers benefited from turning to high public officials when they could prove they were being victimized by unfair business practices or other predatory pricing.
But this era might soon look like the good old days to anyone wanting to keep utility and insurance rates low, pesticides off the dinner table and prices fair for everything from milk to gasoline.
That’s because personalities – and maybe political parties – are about to change in the two statewide offices most concerned with consumer issues in California: the insurance commissioner and the attorney general.
Yes, current Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi might still be in state office next year if he wins his run for lieutenant governor, but in that slot he will have no way to pursue his longtime fight for fair insurance premiums.
Chances are even better that current Attorney General Bill Lockyer will also have a new state job after the coming election, but he will likely be treasurer then, and will have little power to investigate oil companies and other corporations for malfeasance.
Meanwhile, candidates to replace them in their current jobs give few indications of being similarly dedicated to the well-being of the little guy.
Take Democrat Cruz Bustamante and Republican Steve Poizner, vying to replace Garamendi as insurance commissioner. Early in his campaign, Bustamante happily accepted political funds from some of the very insurance companies he seeks to regulate. Yes, he eventually returned the money, asserting that he would never be influenced by their contributions. But he could not return the meals and travel he’d enjoyed at their expense.
“I think I’ve made it crystal clear that I will fight for all Californians to have access to affordable insurance, that I will enforce the rules, and I will prosecute anyone that is cheating the system,” he told a reporter
But he’s had little to say about the ongoing battles between Garamendi and the insurance industry over both excess profits on homeowner insurance policies and whether car insurance rates should be linked more closely to driving records or to ZIP codes where drivers live.
Poizner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose company developed the geographical positioning system used in many cell phones, is mostly supportive of Garamendi’s moves to eliminate ZIP codes as the primary element in insurance rates, but has not said much about excess profits. He has vowed to continue Garamendi’s effort to end the frequent “use it and lose it” practice of insurance companies, which often cancel policies after customers file just one claim.
The wealthy Poizner, running a largely self-financed campaign, has never even considered taking insurance company donations like those that started the disgraced former Republican Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush on the path to self-destruction.
The upshot: No one can be sure how consumers would be treated under either candidate.
Meanwhile, consumer issues get almost no attention in the often-acerbic race for attorney general between Democrat Jerry Brown, the ex-governor who is now mayor of Oakland, and Republican state Sen. Chuck Poochigian of Fresno.
Most Poochigian radio and TV commercials attempt to lampoon Brown as a pro-criminal flake responsible for increased crime in Oakland. The front-running Brown counters by painting the conservative Poochigian as certain to make hash of this state’s gun-control laws.
But neither candidate pays much attention to the consumer issues that any attorney general can greatly influence. Lockyer has investigated electric and natural gas companies, helping California win $6 billion in refunds for gross – sometimes criminal – overcharges during the energy crunch of 2000-2001. He has participated in multi-state lawsuits leading to important reforms in corporate governance.
These were not areas of great interest under his predecessor, conservative Republican Dan Lungren, now a Northern California congressman. In short, attorneys general are generally free to pursue areas that interest them and virtually ignore those that don’t. As neither current candidate shows much interest so far in consumerism, the entire vital subject may be placed on the back burner or worse.
It’s the kind of thing that can happen when primary elections are decided mostly by name recognition (Brown and Bustamante), ideology (Poochigian) and cash (Poizner).
Thomas Elias is author of the book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated second edition. His e-mail address is td*****@ao*.com
