For decades, respected consumer
advocate Harvey Rosenfield has been battling Mercury Insurance and
other corporations that have sought to undermine Proposition 103, the
landmark car insurance regulatory measure that he wrote and California
voters approved in 1988. But he’s never felt the need to advertise on
television, until now.
Today in San Francisco, Rosenfield and the organization he founded,
Consumer Watchdog, unveiled a 15-second commercial urging voters to reject Proposition 17, an
effort by Mercury Insurance to overturn part of Prop. 103 to allow big
surcharges on new drivers or those who have let their coverage lapse
for even one day.
Mercury has spent more than $10 million and counting to blanket the
media with its messaging, while Rosenfield has scraped together just
$250,000 for a one-week Bay Area ad buy.
“We’ve never done this before, but given that Mercury Insurance is
carpet bombing the airwaves with 30-second lies all over the state, we
thought we’d do the equivalent of David’s slingshot,” Rosenfield told
the Guardian.
Most newspapers, consumer groups, and other public interest entities
have come out strongly against both Prop. 17 and Prop. 16, an effort by
Pacific Gas & Electric to consolidate its monopoly and stop local
governments from doing clean energy projects. But these two
corporations are expected to spend about $35 million to fool
Californians into voting against their interests and to increase
corporate profits.
For more, read “Buying
Power,” our recent investigation into these companies and their
deceptive tactics.
