Mercury Insurance Proponents of Prop 33 Resort to Lies (Again), Misquote Court Record, Says Consumer Watchdog Campaign

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a press release today, Mercury Insurance Chairman George Joseph's Proposition 33 campaign misrepresented the in-court statements of Consumer Watchdog's attorneys in Sacramento Superior Court, claiming the attorney told the Court that "the truth is elastic." The court rejected all of the Prop 33 campaign's legal challenges and Consumer Watchdog's attorneys never made the statement "truth is elastic."

In fact, the official transcript of the hearing shows the following are the actual comments of James Harrison of Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, LLP, successfully arguing against striking consumer advocates' statement that "Prop 33 deregulates the insurance industry."

"Secondly, your Honor, as the Court noted, deregulation is an elastic and ideological concept. In the Huntington Beach case, for example, the Court refused to make a change to the argument that the measure requires AES, the electricity company, to pay its fair share. And the reason that the Court refused to intervene was that the term 'fair share' is a very elastic and ideological concept. What you understand to be a fair share might not be what I understand. The same is true of deregulation, your Honor. What I understand to be deregulation may have a very different meaning to someone else. It's a very elastic concept."

"If the insurance industry backers of Prop 33 cannot even get official facts transcribed by a court reporter correct, how can the public trust anything the campaign says?" said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, who was a defendant in yesterday's case. "This is a matter of public record and the Prop 33 campaign lied about it. The Prop 33 campaign won't be able to deceive the public on election day any more than they were successful in deceiving the court yesterday."

For more information, visit our website at: http://www.StopProp33.org

SOURCE Consumer Watchdog Campaign

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