Retired State Justice Considered as Replacement for Quackenbush

As Gov. Gray Davis prepares to name a replacement for former Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush next week, a retired state appellate court justice has emerged as a leading candidate, sources familiar with the selection process said Thursday.

Davis administration officials declined to discuss potential nominees. But others, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the governor is seriously considering retired Court of Appeal Justice Harry Low, 69.

“We’ll have an announcement next week,” Davis spokesman Phil Trounstine said Thursday.

Low, who is said to be one of about four candidates on Davis’ short list of nominees, could not be reached for comment. Others’ names could not be ascertained.

Any nominee would have to be confirmed by the Legislature. Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) predicted that Low would have no trouble winning confirmation in the Senate or Assembly.

“Harry is a guy who is beyond reproach and would only take it for the interim,” Burton said. “It is certainly a safe, quality appointment. He is not going to be in the industry’s pocket.”

Low has had patrons among Democrats and Republicans and is particularly respected among Asian Americans in the San Francisco area, where he served as a judge for 25 years. He retired from the appellate court in 1992, and has been working as an arbitrator since then.

Low’s involvement in state government dates to the 1950s when he was a deputy attorney general under Atty. Gen. Edmund “Pat” Brown Sr. As governor, the elder Brown, a Democrat, named Low to the Municipal Court in 1966.

Gov. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, named him to the Superior Court, and Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Low to the state Court of Appeal in San Francisco in 1982.

Davis has said he is inclined to support efforts to make the job of insurance commissioner, which now is elective, an appointive post.

“I think it is time that the department had a little reprieve from politics,” Davis said last month, indicating then that he intended to nominate a replacement for Quackenbush by late this month or early August.

Quackenbush left office July 10 amid investigations into his secret settlements with major insurance companies over their handling of Northridge earthquake claims. McGeorge Law School professor Clark Kelso has been overseeing the department since Quackenbush’s departure.

In Low, Davis would have a commissioner with little apparent political ambition and one who would be unlikely to run for election in 2002 when the current term expires. Low has no ties to the insurance industry. Nor is he well-known among consumer activists.

Harvey Rosenfield, who wrote the 1988 initiative that made the insurance commissioner’s office elective, called the potential nomination of Low disappointing.

“The insurance commissioner is up against the insurance industry every day, and to be successful, has to be an aggressive advocate with experience dealing with insurance companies and public policy,” Rosenfield said.

Among judges, however, Low receives high marks.

“There are few judges who served so ably as he,” said state Court of Appeal Justice J. Anthony Kline. “Harry has a calming effect on people. He is a person of principle. He certainly understands legal issues, and is not someone with an ax to grind.”