Ricardo Lara has a scandal on his hands

It only took eight months, but insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara is officially embroiled in a scandal.

The former local state Assembly member and state senator accepted more than $53,000 in campaign donations for this 2022 re-election from people linked to the insurance industry (the industry he regulates and oversees).

“This week Lara said it was just a mistake attributable to insufficient campaign controls, and promised once again to return the money,” the L.A. Times wrote in an editorial. “But that’s not good enough. He must explain how these donations were made and what he knew about them. It’s very difficult to believe that Lara, who was acting as his own campaign treasurer, didn’t know the provenance of the contributions, given that they represented most of the donations to his campaign fund.”

Lara pledged to return the money but has refused to release his public calendars, which “might indicate whether Lara personally met with the insurance industry executives who found creative ways to funnel money to his campaign.”

“This scandal has legs, and it raises serious questions about Lara’s behavior in office,” the Sacramento Bee wrote in its own op-ed. “To answer those questions and restore public trust, Lara must embrace transparency and stop hiding his calendars. Resisting full disclosure will only intensify the cloud of suspicion currently hanging over his office.”