CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Insurance Post Race Follows Low Road

When civic-minded “consumer activists” take an interest in electoral politics, do they rise up to the high-minded style of electioneering they find so lacking in common politicians?

Or, does modern politics require them to dismount from their high horses?

Three leading consumer crusaders chose the latter course Thursday, quarreling, calling names, hurling invective and letting fly innuendo--every bit as if they were hard-bitten, second-generation ward heelers.

The reason? The 1990 campaign for state insurance commissioner.

The combatants were Walter Zelman, a candidate for the office and the former director of California Common Cause, Harvey Rosenfield, author of the 1988 insurance reform initiative Proposition 103 and chief backer of the candidacy of consumer newcomer Conway Collis. And finally joining in from the sidelines was that icon of consumerism, Ralph Nader.

Zelman called a press conference to complain that he was not an “impostor” in the battle to reform insurance, as Nader had called him recently.

“Ralph Nader is either misinformed or was misled,” said Zelman, who protested that he should get some credit for spending 13 years as a leading voice for California consumers. “The consumer movement needs Ralph Nader to stay above political mudslinging.”

As for his rival, Collis, he was fined for a campaign spending report violation, has no record on behalf of consumers, and more, as a two-term member of the state tax-administering Board of Equalization he “raised hundreds of thousands of special-interest (campaign) dollars, much of it from corporations who received tax reductions from the Board of Equalization,” Zelman said.

Zelman also took the rod to his used-to-be consumer ally, Rosenfield.

At the root of the dispute is the fact that Zelman was cool to Rosenfield’s Proposition 103 last election. Zelman preferred the trial lawyer’s alternative, Proposition 100, which failed. Zelman now describes the two as “very similar,” and his decision to prefer Proposition 100 was a “tactical difference.”

“I know Harvey Rosenfield somehow holds this against me. But it is inconceivable to me that he would hold a tactical difference against me when I have been fighting insurance companies for five years,” Zelman said.

Three blocks and 45 minutes away, the inconceivable became painfully apparent. Rosenfield held his own fulminating press conference.

“This desperate and sleazy political act is that of a compromising consumer advocate who, like any ordinary would-be politician, is willing to distort his record in order to grab a vote,” Rosenfield snarled.

As Rosenfield portrayed it, Zelman was not just cool to Proposition 103, but opposed it outright during the 1988 campaign.

Zelman has repeatedly denied this. Rosenfield could supply no evidence to the contrary, no news clippings or other material to support the charge, but offered his own credibility as witness. “Basically, you have to take my word for it,” Rosenfield said.

In a telephone interview, Nader said the same thing about Zelman. “He fell far short on insurance. He opposed (rate) rollbacks. He opposed the creation of an elected commissioner. He endorsed 100. And he tried to sabotage it,” Nader said. “He is not suited to be insurance commissioner whose job it is to administer 103--it’s that simple.”

Looking back on the confusing $100-million-plus insurance ballot proposition election of 1988, Nader’s support for Proposition 103 is widely viewed by experts as important in its victory.

Thus, his views today are given vast weight. So far, Nader has labeled Zelman and state Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) as “impostors” and has said nice things about Collis--nice things short of an endorsement.

“It is much easier to express a view on someone’s record than it is to feel assured about supporting a candidate,” Nader said.