Public Urged to Press Panel Members on Insurance Bill

In an unusual political pressure tactic, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento) called Tuesday on the public to telephone five assemblymen to urge them to vote to send Connelly’s bill authorizing state regulation of insurance rates to the Assembly floor.

Connelly said at a Los Angeles news conference that a single vote from any of the five in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee today would be enough to revive his bill giving the state insurance Department the power to approve or reject any sizable fluctuation in insurance rates, and to put a consumer’s advocate in the Insurance Department.

The five assemblymen are Democrats Charles M. Calderon of Alhambra and Gerald R. Eaves of Rialto, and Republicans Gil Ferguson of Newport Beach, Bill Leonard of Redlands and Eric Seastrand of Salinas.

Calderon and Eaves, earlier backers of the measure in another committee, abstained from voting on it when it was defeated in the Ways and Means Committee on June 16. Seastrand also did not vote on that day, while Leonard and Ferguson voted no. Connelly subsequently got permission to have the bill reconsidered.

The bill has been the subject of consierable political maneuvering. In early June, insurance lobbyists and corporate executives met with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and Senate Majority Leader Barry Keene (d-Benicia) and were permitted by the two legislative leaders to draft a weaker substitute measure.

Connelly said he met with Brown on Monday and Brown told him he now supports both the Connelly bill and the substitute.