Editorial, THE SACRAMENTO BEE
These initiatives go against the purpose of the initiative and referendum provisions added to the California Constitution in 1911, aimed at reducing the dominance of special interests in California politics.
PROPOSITION 16: No
Pacific Gas and Electric, the sole sponsor of Proposition 16 and the largest for-profit private utility in the state, is manufacturing a populist cause to make it virtually impossible for public utilities, such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, to expand or add customers.
The result would be to reduce competition for private utilities like PG&E. This is an abuse and manipulation of the initiative process, and voters should reject it.
PG&E characterizes Proposition 16 as a “taxpayer protection” measure. Don’t be deceived. As former California Energy Commissioner John Geesman wrote in an April 11 column, the sole purpose of Proposition 16 is to “insulate PG&E from competition, permanently locking its business advantage into the state constitution.”
It would alter existing voting requirements, requiring a new two-thirds supermajority for local communities to expand public power, start up public power or buy power wholesale from independent operators. In short, PG&E wants to prevent consumers from getting electricity from alternative energy providers.
Voters should not be fooled by this attempt at winning a guaranteed monopoly for one firm.
PROPOSITION 17: No
Here we go again. California voters in 1988 approved fundamental changes in auto insurance to “protect consumers from arbitrary insurance rates and practices, to encourage a competitive insurance marketplace…and to ensure that insurance is fair, available and affordable for all Californians.”
Mercury Insurance, the state’s third-largest auto insurer, has been fighting for more than 20 years to undo that law. So we have Proposition 17, with Mercury Insurance as the lone sponsor.
This measure, under the guise of offering discounts to those who provide evidence of prior insurance (persistent coverage over time), would allow Mercury Insurance to charge others higher premiums.
As the courts have said, discounts for some are surcharges on others.
This practice was specifically prohibited under the 1988 law approved by voters, which says insurers may not use the absence of a prior policy as a factor in setting rates. There is a good reason for this provision: Higher premiums based on that factor would discourage the uninsured from getting insurance. And it would penalize some drivers – those attending college, doing an out-of-state stint in the military, losing a job, suffering temporarily from an illness.
Mercury has been sued for adding surcharges for customers who did not previously carry insurance or had lapses in their history of insurance coverage. The courts finally stopped the practice. The company came back with a proposal for a new law, but that, too was thrown out by the courts.
So Mercury Insurance is back with Proposition 17.
Don’t believe its propaganda.
Stand by the 1988 law that protects consumers, and turn back this self-serving measure sponsored by one firm.
