Ricardo Lara’s long, hot summer

This has been a long, hot summer for Ricardo Lara, a former state legislator from Los Angeles who was elected as California’s insurance commissioner nine months ago.
He’s been hammered by a series of journalistic revelations, mostly in the San Diego Union-Tribune, about how he has indirectly reneged on a campaign promise not to accept campaign contributions from insurance industry sources.
Union-Tribune reporter Jeff McDonald wrote that Lara’s office “intervened in a