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Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Rex Frazier

Illustration by Chris Shary

49. Rex Frazier

The insurance industry has long wielded political clout in Sacramento, and the biggest single reason is the Personal Insurance Federation of California, headed by lawyer Rex Frazier. PIF has a select membership of the industry’s heavy hitters – Farmers, State Farm, Mercury, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, Kemper and Nationwide. Few people like insurance companies, and the Legislature is dominated by Democrats, many of whom favor the insurers’ arch enemy – trial lawyers. Frazier’s difficult and primary task is to protect his members from punitive legislation and, on the flip side, build support for them. Frazier, a shrewd strategist, does that by marshaling PIF’s resources on behalf of business-friendly lawmakers of both parties while targeting opponents. He set up a 10-member political action committee called PIFPAC – which Frazier chairs – that meets at least three times a year to decide how to help fund candidates. Frazier, the former top counsel for the Department of Insurance, has graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Chicago, a law degree from McGeorge School of Law and has served there as an adjunct professor.

Updated Aug. 15, 2023

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