Crusader Enters GOP Race for Insurance Post

Tom Skornia, a lawyer and longtime crusader for reducing lawyers’ profits from the insurance system, announced his candidacy Wednesday for the Republican nomination for insurance commissioner, becoming the second GOP entry in the race.

Skornia, 55, of San Jose, who is former president of the California Legal Reform Institute and is vice chairman of the Assn. for California Tort Reform, said he will not accept any insurance industry contributions for his campaign. This is in contrast with the other Republican, insurance agent Wes Bannister of Huntington Beach.

Skornia, like Bannister, called for enforcement of the mandated-rollbacks of Proposition 103, the insurance initiative whose implementation has been subject to long delays. Proposition 103 makes the post of insurance commissioner an elective position this year for the first time.

During the 1988 campaign, Skornia was a leading sponsor of the unsuccessful Proposition 106, which would have placed limits on lawyers’ contingency fees.

A graduate of Grinnell College and Harvard Law School, Skornia has served as a law clerk to a U.S. Circuit Court judge, was a special assistant to U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1962-63, and was founding partner of his own law firm.