Rosenfield Won’t Seek State Office

Consumer advocate Harvey Rosenfield, author of the 1988 initiative that made the state insurance commissioner’s job an elected post, said Thursday that he has decided against running for the position this year.

Rosenfield’s decision, after he considered candidacy for several months, leaves incumbent Republican Chuck Quackenbush with little well-known or well-financed opposition.

Rosenfield, 45, who heads an array of organizations that seek enforcement of Proposition 103, his insurance reform initiative, had been backing away from running for weeks, citing monetary problems and family considerations and saying that he really did not have “fire in the belly” for an electoral candidacy, even though he did take the initial step of changing his registration last fall from independent to Democrat.

In addition, Rosenfield, who also works on reforming health care, said that his mentor, Ralph Nader, was opposed to his becoming a candidate.

Nader, he said, prefers advocacy to candidacies. Also, according to Rosenfield, the state’s trial lawyers, traditionally rivals of insurers, made few financial commitments to a prospective campaign.

In a note to staffers of his consumer advocacy organizations headquartered in Santa Monica, Rosenfield said: “This decision was especially difficult because it is unlikely that there will be a candidate in the race with both the demonstrated consumer qualifications and the resources necessary to beat the insurance industry’s candidate [Quackenbush].”

Quackenbush has taken pains in recent months to downplay his ties to the industry, asserting that he has worked in the interests of consumers despite accepting millions of dollars of industry campaign contributions.

The commissioner’s announced challengers--Assemblywoman Diane Martinez (D-Monterey Park) and Marin County Supervisor Hal Brown, also a Democrat--have said they will emphasize the commissioner’s closeness to the industry.

But at this point, neither appears to have sufficient reputation or finances to make a race that would command much public attention, particularly in a year featuring contests for governor and the U.S. Senate.

State Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) also said Thursday that he will not run for insurance commissioner. Instead, he said, he will file papers to run for state attorney general.

There have also been occasional reports that state Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) might try to make an independent bid for the job. Kopp has said nothing publicly.

If Quackenbush indeed has an easy route to reelection, it would fit the experience in most other states with elected insurance, utilities, railroad or transportation commissioners.

Often, those who win election are heavily financed by the groups they regulate because these are the only parties with sufficient interest at stake in the office to make substantial contributions. Quackenbush has raised more than $4 million in industry contributions for his own campaigns and for an insurance initiative he sponsored two years ago.

Rosenfield and Nader had argued that making insurance commissioner an elected post would make the consumer’s point of view dominant. But the first elected commissioner, Democrat John Garamendi, was not as pro-consumer as Rosenfield and other consumer leaders wanted, and Quackenbush has seldom been aligned with the state’s consumer groups.