Nader Spurns Idea of Joint Vote for Props. 103 and 100

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader on Thursday began a six-day California tour on behalf of the insurance initiative, Proposition 103, by spurning a suggestion by eight consumer groups that voters should cast ballots for both Propositions 100 and 103 on the Nov. 8 ballot.

“I believe in clarification and focus,” Nader told a Los Angeles news conference. “The only initiative I’m supporting is 103. There is no point in the voters diluting or canceling out their vote by voting for two insurance initiatives when they can vote for 103.”

He added that despite suggestions to the contrary, he is convinced that ultimately all of the sweeping rate rollbacks called for under his initiative will be allowed to go into effect by the courts and other authorities. But even if they were not allowed, he said, other parts of the initiative, calling for an elected insurance commissioner and stringent rate regulation, would still stand.

Comes as Disappointment

Nader’s statement spurning the joint-vote proposal came as a disappointment to the chief spokesman for the consumer coalition, Harry Snyder, West Coast director of the Consumers Union.

Snyder’s group was one of the first to support both Proposition 103 and Proposition 100. The latter, backed by the California Trial Lawyers Assn., Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and various consumer groups and calls for less all-encompassing rate rollbacks and regulation than the Nader measure. Proposition 100 and three initiatives backed by elements of the insurance industry have trailed Proposition 103 in recent polls.

“We have enough enemies from the other side that it’s best not to squabble among ourselves,” Snyder said in response to Nader. “We’re concerned about getting California drivers the best deal on insurance, not winning a campaign for one of the consumer-backed initiatives over another.”

So, Snyder said, Consumers Union, Common Cause, the Urban League and the other consumer groups will “absolutely hold to our position” of urging a vote for both the 100 and 103 measures, and a vote against the insurer-backed initiatives, Propositions 101, 104 and 106.

As he started his tour that will take him to 14 counties both in Northern and Southern California, Nader confirmed that he has given his permission for an independent committee of trial lawyers headed by Claremont attorney Herb Hafif to use his name in the campaign’s final week in a $300,000 newspaper and radio advertising blitz against Proposition 106, a measure slashing lawyers’ contingency fees.

Reflects Dissatisfaction

Hafif said the ads will begin running Nov. 2 and reflect the dissatisfaction of some trial lawyers with the strategy of the Proposition 100 campaign, which has been aimed primarily at passing Proposition 100 rather than against Proposition 106. Proposition 100 contains a clause preempting the limits on contingency fees, but the preemption would not take effect unless the 100 measure got a larger majority than 106.

In the Hafif committee’s planned newspaper ads, Nader is quoted as calling Proposition 106 “the worst insurance company initiative of all” and noting that it would put no restrictions on the fees of the insurance companies’ lawyers. “Only the consumer lawyers are restricted,” Nader said in the ad.

Scott Carpenter, a spokesman for the insurance industry campaign for both Propositions 104, the no-fault initiative, and 106, said Thursday that Nader’s involvement in the new anti-106 ads confirms his close identity with the trial lawyers.

“Mr. Nader’s operations have long been fielded by trial lawyers and Mr. Nader himself is a trial lawyer,” Carpenter said. However, he noted, even Nader has said on occasion that some lawyers’ contingency fees are too high.

Thursday evening, a frequent spokesman for the insurance industry campaign, Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), debated Nader briefly on KABC-TV, with Davis contending that Proposition 104 would do more for consumers than Proposition 103, and Nader taking the opposite position.

The industry campaign also released a statement by Norma Phillips, former national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, opposing Proposition 103 because it would include drunk drivers among those who would qualify for the 20% rate rollbacks it calls for from the level of insurance premiums prevailing a year before the election.

The position of Mothers Against Drunk Driving continued to stir controversy Thursday as the Proposition 100 campaign continued to maintain that it is correct in airing a pro-100 commercial showing the California chairwoman of MADD endorsing it, despite the demand of the national MADD organization that it cease using the spot.

The Proposition 100 campaign chairman, Steven Miller, charged that the national statement was “politically motivated,” and declared, “It is a well known fact that the national organization receives a substantial portion of its funding from the insurance industry.”

He also released a statement from MADD’s California chairwoman, Chris Bauer, who is shown in the commercial, saying that the California chapters of MADD are endorsing Proposition 100 and implying that the national demand to stop the commercial was inappropriate.

“California MADD’s endorsement of Proposition 100, and only Proposition 100, is appropriate and will stand,” Bauer said.