Wilson Fills Top Post at Corporations

Dale E. Bonner, a top administration official and political associate, has been appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson to head the California Department of Corporations, the agency that regulates the state’s HMO industry.

Bonner, a Republican, has been deputy secretary and general counsel at the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency since 1996. That agency oversees the Department of Corporations.

The corporations agency, which also regulates securities firms and other business operations, has been under fire from critics who charge that it has done a poor job of regulating the state’s many HMOs.

Recently, a task force created by Wilson to study the managed-care industry recommended that oversight of HMOs be transferred from the Department of Corporations to a new agency that would deal exclusively with health-care issues. Separately, several lawmakers are expected to introduce bills this year that would remove oversight of HMOs from the department and move it to the Department of Insurance or another agency.

The $108,000-a-year job has been a political hot seat during the last three years because of the controversy surrounding HMOs and their growing influence in California.

If Bonner wins confirmation from the state Senate, he will replace former Corporations Commissioner Keith Bishop, who resigned in September six months after winning a politically bruising fight for Senate confirmation for the job. Bishop, a securities lawyer, left to return to private law practice in Newport Beach.

Wilson praised Bonner for his “sharp intellect and energy,” adding that, “I look forward to working closely with him on the department’s oversight of managed care and investment programs.”

Bonner, like his two predecessors at the Department of Corporations, is a lawyer with no significant experience in the health-care field. But Matt Taggart, a Wilson spokesman, said Bonner has become familiar with managed-care issues during his two years at the Business, Transportation agency.

“He is very cognizant and aware of the issues within the department,” Taggart said.

Bonner served as deputy legal affairs secretary to Wilson from 1992 to 1996, when he moved to the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. Before joining the Wilson administration, he was in private practice at the Los Angeles law firm of Bryan Cave McPheeters & McRoberts, where he specialized in civil litigation, commercial contracts and product liability cases.

A graduate of USC and Georgetown University Law Center, Bonner was a special assistant to Wilson when the governor served in the U.S. Senate.