This would be the most miserable choice on California’s ballot — if it were a choice

California’s Democratic insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, repeatedly took campaign money from the industry he regulates, intervened in official disputes to the benefit of his contributors, broadly assured insurers of his willingness to do their bidding, charged taxpayers for a second home, took concert tickets from a fossil fuel company and oversaw the preemptive destruction of public records.

Apart from that, he’s been an exemplary public servant.

What’s as remarkable as Lara’s ethical decrepitude is the virtual certainty that he will win a second term. Lara’s nominal opposition, Republican small-business owner Robert Howell, is a largely unknown dabbler who narrowly survived the primary to secure the privilege of losing to the tarnished incumbent in what is all but sure to be a landslide.

This doesn’t point to a broader problem so much as a whole host of them.

The first problem is of course Lara, a former Los Angeles area legislator whose transgressions have been multifarious and meticulously documented. His original sin, accepting insurance industry support, began before he stepped foot in the office, and he went on to repeat it even after making a public apology and vowing to do better. Now he stands accused of continuing to benefit from industry support through indirect contributions to his reelection campaign.

Then there’s Lara’s party, most of which — including Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top officials — shamefully remained in the compromised commissioner’s corner even after a viable Democrat, Bay Area Assemblyman Marc Levine, emerged to challenge him in June’s top-two primary.

The primary itself is yet another problem underscored by this contest. While the top-two format was supposed to foster intraparty competition, it has reliably failed to do so partly because multiple candidates from the dominant party — Democratic in the case of statewide offices — tend to fragment the vote, advancing a hopeless member of the minority party. This could be addressed through runoffs, ranked-choice voting and more than nominal ballot requirements to discourage frivolous candidates.

Speaking of which, Lara’s Republican opponent has the considerable advantage over the commissioner of not having besmirched a public office. But Howell, the owner of a small Silicon Valley electronics firm, doesn’t appear to have put much thought or preparation into this campaign. Neither has his wayward party, which is struggling to produce credible, viable candidates for most statewide offices.

Though Howell promises to be a more transparent and ethical insurance commissioner than Lara — which would be hard not to do — he is woefully short on specific plans and proposals. And while it’s tempting to choose him over Lara on principle, the Republican doesn’t inspire confidence that he could serve competently in the office, let alone come anywhere near being elected to it.

As for the incumbent, in yet another demonstration of his sheer unaccountable hubris, Lara refused to so much as answer a few relevant questions from McClatchy’s California editorial boards.

Lara is one of those rare politicians who brings doubt on not just his person but his office. California asks a lot of its voters, from setting standards for specialized medical care to sorting out a convoluted special-interest free-for-all over gambling — and that’s just on this year’s ballot. Trying to figure out which ambitious politician or also-ran could possibly be qualified to regulate the state’s insurance markets is yet another mission inscrutable.

It’s one that was assigned by the voters themselves by dint of another adventure in direct democracy, 1988’s Proposition 103. The measure had the noble goal of protecting consumers with a powerful new regulator, but it took all of two elected commissioners for the office to go off the rails, when Chuck Quackenbush resigned in disgrace in 2000.

It seems to be headed that way again. It’s impossible at this point to endorse California’s failing experiment in electing an insurance regulator, much less either of the candidates for the job.

This story was originally published October 5, 2022 at 7:00 AM.