An insurance company lobbyist recently wrote he was frustrated that a California bail reform bill was moving forward. He listed all the reasons why he thought it shouldn't have passed out of Committee. The problem? The problem is that in a blog that included the word "truth" in it, most of his reasons were false. I'm only going to mention one example, but realize the when the insurance companies do this even once, they lose all credibility with the rest of the system.
This lobbyist said that one reason the bill shouldn't have been voted out was because the Committee had received a letter from people in Jefferson County, Colorado (my county), saying that they tried bail reform and then decided it didn't work. ABC got that letter written mostly to do something that would make me look bad. But that isn't the real problem. The real problem is that everything in the letter was wrong and misleading. So wrong and misleading, in fact, that a judge in Jefferson County -- indeed, the judge tasked with making changes to the system both in Jefferson County and statewide -- wrote a declaration refuting the letter. What did she write? Basically, that the people who wrote the letter weren't even there when we worked on bail, didn't know what they were talking about, and were flat out wrong and misleading about their conclusions.
So, when the insurance companies passed it out in Maryland, we sent the declaration and Maryland ignored the letter. When they passed it out in Harris County, we sent the declaration, and, well, you know what happened there. So in California, I can only assume that the people weren't fooled by that letter either. I personally sent the declaration to a variety of people in California. And I'm sending it everywhere else.
So the message from this one single thing to the people in California and elsewhere is this: the insurance companies are lying to us. Bang. Credibility shot, and bill moves on because, well, "If they lied to us about this . . . "
I could go through the rest of the reasons this particular lobbyist listed -- like New Jersey, Cathy Lanier, and people who oppose it, but you'd just see the same pattern. The fact is that the bill is moving forward not because the California reps aren't representing the people. It's moving forward because the bail insurance companies lie like rugs.
Now it could be that this particular bail insurance dude simply didn't realize the truth because ABC lied to him, too. It makes sense because it's the insurance companies that pay ABC to exist. But probably not. I think their strategy is to win at any cost. It's scorched earth, and in the end scorched earth burns everyone, including bail agents.
Do you wonder why, in places like DC, New Jersey, and NM, they leave money and commercial sureties in the law but judges simply stop using them? That's the consequence of all those lies.
