The sun had already set over The Grand, Frank Gehry’s skyscraper complex in downtown Los Angeles, as Ricardo Lara sat down for dinner at San Laurel, a flagship restaurant of famed chef José Andrés that offers sparkling views of the city.
Lara and a guest started with an Americano and a Diet Coke, according to a receipt from the California insurance commissioner’s meal the evening of Jan. 15, 2024. Over the next two and a half hours, Lara and company went on to order delicacies like jamón Iberico, pan con tomate, sea urchin, lobster salpicón, wild mushrooms, a rack of lamb, Andrés’ signature gambas al zahara, a $16 grapefruit, and chocolate mousse.
Lubricating this $700 culinary adventure were two bottles of Leirana Albariño, a white wine from the Rías Baixas region of Spain.
This may sound rather decadent, but Lara wasn’t personally on the hook. He charged $234 of the tab to a little-known campaign committee he created two years ago to run for lieutenant governor. His special guest picked up the balance.
Lara has never formally announced his intention to run for lieutenant governor, and it does not appear to have been mentioned in news reports. He has completed almost none of the steps to mount a serious campaign and has not talked about plans to run for the second-highest elected office in California, according to sources in state politics.
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Lara, who came up in the Los Angeles political machine and previously served in the state Assembly and Senate, saw the insurance commissioner post as a steppingstone to higher office when first elected in 2018, according to sources. He became the first openly LGBTQ+ person to be elected to statewide office in California. But the job has turned into a political pitfall as wildfires rage and insurance companies cancel policies and flee the state.
“There is no way in hell that Ricardo could get elected to statewide office right now,” said a Democratic political consultant.
Now, an investigation by The Standard has found that Lara, with less than two years left in his final term, has been using what appears to be a shell campaign committee to pay for nearly $30,000 in meals and drinks at some of the country’s fanciest restaurants and bars. Almost a third of these charges were listed as campaign meetings, and it’s unclear who Lara has been wining and dining during meals costing hundreds or, in at least one case, more than $1,000.
By that standard, the dinner at San Laurel was a bargain, since Lara’s companion picked up two-thirds of the bill. The guest, according to the receipt, was Raul Vargas, who would appear to be CEO of Farmers Insurance Group, the state’s second-largest home insurer.
Lara has been consistently accused of being too cozy with the insurance industry. Just months after taking office in 2019, he was found to be collecting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from insurance interests. He issued a statement at that time saying he was “deeply sorry” his campaign had taken the money and vowed that he would no longer court the industry for campaign support.
As insurance commissioner, Lara is tasked with policing the industry and setting rates in California, where Farmers and other companies have canceled or stopped issuing policies for drivers and homeowners. Meanwhile, some insurers have moved out of the state entirely. In fact, just two months after Lara’s dinner, a Farmers affiliate canceled 100,000 auto policies in California. A month later, Lara sat down with Vargas for a friendly chat at a CEO summit.
Carmen Balber, executive director of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, said Lara’s apparent campaign dinner with Vargas shows he has reneged on his promise to eschew campaign support from the insurance industry.
“It sounds like he’s mixing regulation and politics once more,” Balber said. “Maybe ‘shocker’ is the wrong word, but it’s disappointing. And if this wasn’t a campaign meeting, then what is this campaign committee? Nothing more than a slush fund.”
Lara and Vargas did not respond to The Standard’s requests for comment.
Since transferring more than $227,000 in remaining funds from a committee for his 2022 reelection as insurance commissioner, Lara has continued to collect thousands of dollars from special interests despite not visibly running a campaign.
Sean McMorris, an expert on campaign ethics and transparency for California Common Cause, said it is not uncommon for career politicians to open what are essentially shell committees to park their leftover campaign money. The California secretary of State’s website lists 30 active candidate campaigns for lieutenant governor in 2026 and 2030.
“It’s a way for them to forward their funds and keep a campaign war chest, regardless of whether they have any real intention of running for that office or not,” McMorris said. “But the public and the press absolutely have a right to question how a politician is using campaign funds in a committee that they have open.”
Last year, Lara charged two meals at Piatti, a high-end Italian restaurant in Sacramento. The check for an April 17, 2024, dinner came to almost $1,002. The eight people at the “campaign strategy meeting” ordered five martinis, two other cocktails, eight glasses of wine, a separate bottle of Honig sauvignon blanc, and almost half the items on the dinner menu.
One of Lara’s favorite haunts is Baar Baar, a high-end Indian restaurant and bar in Los Angeles, where he reported holding four separate campaign meetings since 2023. The most recent outing, a meal for two, included a bottle of Cobb riesling and two more glasses of the wine to go with lamb keema hyderabadi, shrimp ghee roast, and beef short ribs, among other items.
On a prior visit to Baar Baar, in August 2023, Lara and an unknown guest ordered three “Slumdog Millionaire” cocktails, among other drinks and dishes. Two other boozy meals from earlier in the summer of 2023 came to nearly $564 in total.
The Standard’s findings come just weeks after an ABC7 investigation reported that Lara was using tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to attend conferences in Paris and Bogotá, Colombia, among other trips. Meanwhile, he was missing insurance hearings to discuss catastrophic infernos that have been plaguing the state since Lara took office, including the deadly Los Angeles wildfires in January.
One of the only mentions The Standard could find of Lara running for lieutenant governor was a small disclaimer on the website he set up for his insurance commissioner race more than two years ago.
A Democratic political consultant who works on state campaigns said Lara is the “poster boy” for why the state campaign finance system is in need of reform.
“He’s a perfect example of someone who had no business being elected to this position, but he was supported by the Democratic establishment,” the source said. “It turns out he’s taking advantage and abusing the office.”
Officials for the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, which acts as a watchdog on campaigns, did not respond to a request for comment. But the agency’s manual spells out rules around campaign expenses, saying any meal costing more than $200 must be directly related to a “political, legislative, or governmental purpose.”
David Latterman, a political analyst in San Francisco, said Lara’s free spending brings to mind another legislator who is under investigation by the FPPC: Assemblymember Matt Haney. The Standard last year documented that Haney spent roughly $80,000 of campaign money on tickets to Broadway shows and 49ers, Giants, and Golden State Warriors games.
“Lara is not serious. It was always a game to him,” Latterman said. “And now insurers are leaving. People are being priced out; they can’t get insurance. It’s gone beyond like, ‘Oh, he’s just not up for the job.’ He’s fucking the state.”