By Karen Ocamb

Start talking to John Garamendi and it soon becomes clear that the insurance commissioner and Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor is a sincerely simple, yet deeply complex man. A polite family rancher from the middle of the state, his '60s idealism led him to a life of wonkish public service with the clout of a boxer when fighting for principle. One of those principles is the strong belief in equality for LGBT community and people with HIV/AIDS.

“For more than three decades, John Garamendi has been one of the most dependable, progressive allies our community has seen in public office,” longtime labor leader John Perez told IN.

Indeed, even ACT UP thanked Garamendi after he was elected as California's first insurance commissioner in 1991. When AIDS activists complained that insurance companies were denying coverage and treatment to people dying from AIDS, Garamendi created a task force and, despite having no statutory authority to do so, issued an order demanding that insurance companies provide that care. In 1992 AIDS Project Los Angeles gave Garamendi their Crystal Apple award for that action,

“ACT UP,” Garamendi told IN, “gave me a pair of professional boxing gloves, saying 'We like the way you fight.' ACT UP's normal way of discussing things was to stand on the street and berate you until you finally had the wisdom to engage in a conversation. So we were on some street between West Hollywood and Hollywood and had a serious meeting with all the shouting and yelling. But it was all good because they were basically thanking me for what we had done.”

Standing on a street corner with ACT UP is a long way from Camp Blanding, Florida where his military father ran the camp and where Garamendi was born on Jan. 24, 1945. Later his father retired and the family moved to a cattle ranch in Calavaras County, Calif., which had been in Garamendi's mother's family since the 1860s. (Garamendi lives in Walnut Grove, a suburb of Sacramento, but the ranch is still in the family.)

After receiving a bachelor's degree in business from UC Berkeley in June 1966, Garamendi and his wife Patti went into the Peace Corps, landing in a remote area of Ethiopia where they taught and lived in a mud hut with a dirt floor, a tin roof, and an outhouse. But it was “a wonderful situation,” far from the chaos besieging America. In 1968, they returned to Boston where Garamendi worked on his master's degree in business administration from Harvard University while the anti-Vietnam War movement raged around them. “By 1974, I was so upset with everything that was happening,” Garamendi recalled, “I decided I had to get involved in some way, somehow and try to change things. So I ran for the [California] Assembly. I spent $16,000 and probably knocked on 16,000 doors and started my legislative career.”

Garamendi served in the Assembly for two years, then the state Senate from 1976-1990. He served as insurance commissioner from 1991 to 1994, when he ran unsuccessfully for governor. From 1995 to 1998, he served as deputy secretary in the Clinton administration's Interior Department. He was again elected insurance commissioner in 2002 after a scandal forced Chuck Quackenbush to resign.

As with policy wonks Bill Clinton and Al Gore (who has endorsed him), Garamendi likes public policy. “I find myself engaged in developing solutions to the problems that are out there -- the more difficult, the happier I am,” Garamendi said. “Public policy, public service, is just part of our lives for both Patti and I and we've passed it on to our [six] children.”

Including his chief deputy Eric Bauman, Garamendi thinks three members of his executive team are openly gay. He supports marriage equality and wrote a letter supporting Assemblymember Mark Leno's AB 19 bill when it was struggling. He would unequivocally sign a marriage equality bill if given the opportunity.

But Garamendi's opponents challenged his commitment to LGBT rights after he appeared at an endorsement meeting for Stonewall Democratic Club of Greater Sacramento and “tried to re-write history” when explaining his 1973 no vote on the decriminalization of sodomy.

“I was 27 and an Assembly freshman at that time. I had little or no experience with the GLBT community and I simply didn't understand those issues. In the area I represented, there were no openly gay people,” Garamendi told IN. “As I matured in my job and became more aware of what was going on in California, I came to understand the necessity for equal rights, equal opportunities and fair treatment of everybody. It was a process.”

Garamendi said about the Sacramento meeting, “I was simply mistaken about which bill was which. That was 32 years ago. What I was actually remembering was the [Art Agnos civil rights bill] AB 1 bill [which he voted yes on]. I merged the two in my mind.”

Both Garamendi and Bauman have apologized for the Sacramento remarks and an inaccurate letter, though opponent Jackie Speier's campaign says they are unaware of an apology. In fact, IN reported on Bauman's apology and acceptance of responsibility at the Los Angeles Stonewall Democratic Club meeting where the club endorsed Garamendi.

Meanwhile Bauman called Speier a “hypocrite” because she “calls herself the champion of privacy rights but in 1999 voted against Assemblymember Carole Migden's ‘unique identifier’ bill which was an issue of privacy and civil rights protecting people with HIV. She's got a hell of a nerve going after [Garamendi] for a vote 32 years ago when just six years ago she herself voted against a major piece of HIV civil rights legislation.” (Speier's campaign says this is mixing “apples and oranges.” Read the reaction in her interview.)

The winner of the June 6 primary will face Tom McClintock, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, to whom Garamendi would say, “I stand for equal rights for everyone. Fundamentally, [marriage equality] is an equal rights issue. Separate is not equal.”

For more information, go to www.garamendi.org.