John Raymond Garamendi ( GARR-ə-MEN-dee; born January 24, 1945) is an American businessman, politician and member of the Democratic Party who has represented areas of Northern California between San Francisco and Sacramento, including the cities of Fairfield and Vacaville in the United States House of Representatives since 2009. Garamendi was the California insurance commissioner from 1991 to 1995 and 2003 to 2007, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Interior from 1995 to 1998, and the 46th lieutenant governor of California from 2007 until his election to Congress in late 2009.
Garamendi was born in Camp Blanding, Florida and raised in Mokelumne Hill, California. He earned a B.A. in business from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School then served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1966 to 1968. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1974, serving a single term before being elected in 1976 to the California State Senate where he served four terms until 1990. During this time he had a stint as Majority Leader and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nominations for governor of California in 1982 and California State Controller in 1986.
In 1990, Garamendi became the first elected California insurance commissioner, serving from 1991 to 1995. He ran for governor in the 1994 election, losing in the Democratic primary. He left elective office and served as President Bill Clinton's deputy secretary of the interior from 1995 to 1998 then worked for the Peace Corps again. He was elected insurance commissioner again in 2002 and briefly ran for governor again in the 2003 recall, before dropping out to support Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante. In 2006, he was elected lieutenant governor to succeed the term-limited Bustamante.
Garamendi had planned to run for governor a fourth time in 2010, but after U.S. Representative Ellen Tauscher of California's 10th congressional district resigned, Garamendi won the November 2009 special election to succeed her.
Garamendi was born in Camp Blanding, Florida, and was raised in Mokelumne Hill, California. Both his father and his paternal grandfather ultimately moved back to the Basque Country in the 1960s.
Garamendi received a Bachelor of Arts in business from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a football offensive guard and wrestler, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. He served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1966 to 1968. Garamendi is an Eagle Scout and a member of Sigma Chi, as a brother of the Alpha Beta Chapter at Berkeley.
California legislature (1974–1991)
In 1974, Garamendi decided to run for California's 7th State Assembly district. Six-term Republican incumbent William T. Bagley did not run for reelection, instead running unsuccessfully for California State Controller. In the election to succeed Bagley, Garamendi faced Republican State Assemblyman Douglas F. Carter, who had won a special election in the 12th Assembly district in July 1973 to succeed Robert T. Monagan. In the general election, Garamendi defeated Carter, 60,380 votes (64.08%) to 33,842 (35.92%), as Democrats won a supermajority in the California State Assembly for the first time since the 1800s.
After one term in the Assembly, Garamendi decided to run for California's 13th State Senate district in 1976. He defeated Republican Bob Whitten, 53% to 47%. He was reelected in 1980 (60%), 1984 (69%), and 1988 (69%).
While in the California Senate, Garamendi served as Majority Leader. He chaired the Joint Committee on Science and Technology, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, and the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.
Garamendi first ran for governor of California in 1982. In the Democratic primary, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley defeated him, 61% to 25%.
In the 1986 Democratic primary for California State Controller, Garamendi lost to Assemblyman Gray Davis, 50% to 38%.
Insurance commissioner (1991–1995)
Garamendi first ran for California Insurance Commissioner in 1990. He won the Democratic primary with a plurality of 36% of the vote. His closest challenger was radio talk show host Bill Press, who got 28% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Republican Wes Bannister, 52% to 38%. In fact, he was so confident of winning that he resigned his state senate seat early to give an advantage to his wife Patti, over her top rival for the seat, assemblyman Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton) for the upcoming special election to replace him.
In 1991, while serving as California Insurance Commissioner, Garamendi seized Executive Life, a failing life insurance company, and resold it to French investors who turned out to be fronts for a government-owned French bank. They made billions of dollars selling off the company's portfolio of junk bonds while the Californians with Executive Life policies were very negatively affected. This became a scandal in both the U.S. and France, with the U.S. government filing criminal charges, because it was illegal for a government-owned bank to own a U.S. insurer. Policyholders blamed Garamendi for putting them in this position.
Eventually the U.S. government reached a settlement with the French bankers, and in 2005 Garamendi agreed to a settlement, the terms of which further angered Executive Life policyholders, who, according to the Sacramento Bee, "had been damaged to the tune of perhaps $5 billion." A leader of the policyholders' interest group, Sue Watson, said, "We are shocked and outraged that the largest financial fraud in California history would be settled for so little and without even a fight." The Bee editorialized that "Garamendi cannot simultaneously assert that the sale was a good deal and a multibillion-dollar fraud, and then defend a cents-on-the-dollar settlement that left the buyers with billions of dollars in windfall profits. It just does not make sense."
Garamendi ran for California governor a second time in 1994. In the Democratic primary, State Treasurer Kathleen Brown defeated him, 48% to 33%.
After Garamendi's tenure as insurance commissioner, President Bill Clinton appointed him Deputy Secretary of the Interior, the second-highest post in the U.S. Department of the Interior. He resigned in 1998 and became a partner at Yucaipa Companies, which had deals financed by Leon Black. Also from 1998 to 2000, Garamendi returned to the Peace Corps, leading groups of volunteers that helped negotiate peace treaties in the Eritrean–Ethiopian War and Second Congo War.