Politicians, Court Warned of Prop. 103 Retaliation : Election: The author of the 1988 insurance rollback initiative sends message to voters in effort to avoid its weakening.

Proposition 103 author Harvey Rosenfield sent a blunt warning to state legislators and the California Supreme Court on Wednesday, saying he will retaliate politically against those who try to weaken or overthrow the 1988 insurance rollback initiative.

Six days before the state primary election and oral arguments in a key Proposition 103 case before the Supreme Court, Rosenfield’s organization ran a full-page advertisement in the West Coast edition of the New York Times that bore the huge headline, “Dirty Inside Deal Could Boost Your Insurance Premiums 40% Overnight!”

In the ad and in a pamphlet mailed Wednesday to about 350,000 California households, Rosenfield identified politicians, jurists and others who he said have been hostile to the initiative.

This is the first time Rosenfield’s organization has gone directly to voters in its effort to get Proposition 103 fully implemented. The group also solicited contributions to keep the publicity campaign going until the November general election.

Rosenfield’s nonprofit group, the Proposition 103 Enforcement Project, contends that the insurance industry--which failed to defeat the proposition despite massive spending--decided instead to thwart the measure through the Legislature and the courts.

Next Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pivotal Proposition 103 case arising from Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi’s order that 20th Century Insurance Co. pay $106 million in premium rebates and interest.

A lower court struck down Garamendi’s order as an unconstitutional infringement on the insurer’s right to a fair profit. If that ruling holds, Rosenfield says, “consumers will have no protection against unjustified rates, and rapid increases will result.”

Rosenfield in March asked a majority of the Supreme Court--four justices who were appointed by then-Gov. George Deukmejian--to disqualify themselves from another Proposition 103-related case in which lawyer Deukmejian is representing an insurer. The justices refused to step aside.

In his mailers and newspaper ad, Rosenfield alluded to those cases and criticized the Legislature for passing--and Gov. Pete Wilson for signing--numerous bills he says have chipped away at Proposition 103 provisions.

The ad included a 1989 group photo--from an insurance trade publication--of smiling state Sen. Patrick Johnston and then-Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie. They are bracketed by then-Sen. Alan Robbins and lobbyist Clayton Jackson, both of whom were later convicted and sent to jail on insurance-related corruption charges. The ad said that Johnston (D-Stockton) has accepted $230,000 in contributions from insurance interests and has carried numerous anti-Proposition 103 bills.

Johnston, contacted Wednesday, said the photo amounted to “guilt by association.” He said it was misleading to imply that he and Jackson were steadfast allies, considering that he once asked the Sacramento district attorney to investigate the lobbyist for suspected perjury in testimony he gave to a legislative panel.

“People who write initiatives often feel they’ve written the equivalent of the Ten Commandments” and resist any legislative tinkering, Johnston said. But no initiative--or any other legislation--is perfect, and requires modification, he added.

“The governor’s not hostile to Prop. 103,” Marjorie M. Berte, Wilson’s insurance adviser, said Wednesday. A large, bipartisan majority of the Legislature passed the legislation, she said, “and we don’t agree that those laws undermined the initiative.”

A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court said none of the justices would comment on Rosenfield’s allegations. Neither Deukmejian nor Gillespie returned phone calls seeking comment.