Too much democracy calling

Like many Kansans, many Americans apparently think there ought to be a law against "robocalls," those automated and sometimes deceptive political phone calls that were received last fall by nearly two-thirds of registered voters nationally. The calls currently are exempt from laws establishing no-call lists. Kansas’ legislators opted only to mandate that the messages identify the calls’ sponsor. And any attempt to limit campaign messages risks trampling the First Amendment, but Nebraska and Missouri are among the states ready to go further. “People said they didn’t want calls in the middle of the night,” said Christy Abraham, legal counsel for a committee in the Nebraska Legislature. “They said we don’t want 17 calls in a row. And they said we want to know who’s calling.” She added: “The courts seem to be upholding these as far as permissible restrictions. We’re going to try it and see what happens.”
Posted by Rhonda Holma

4 Comments

  1. Jed
    Posted April 30, 2007 at 5:13 am | Permalink

    I don’t accept calls from machines. If a candidate wants my vote, he can call me and we’ll discuss it. Anything else is just propaganda.

  2. raptor
    Posted April 30, 2007 at 7:43 am | Permalink

    Middle of the night? 17 calls in a row? Could we be seeing just a “tad” bit of exaggerating here? People tend to overstate when they are upset..and this seems more than a little ridiculous.

    If you don’t want to hear the message, here is a thought..HANG UP. Doesn’t take a law to hang up the phone.

    What is the harm if there are some phone calls? Harm other than being slightly annoyed, that is. Do we really, REALLY need a law here? Sounds like the “there outta be a law” crowd is all on top of this. sad.

  3. Republican
    Posted April 30, 2007 at 10:07 am | Permalink

    The Robo Calls are very annoying. Whoever made their software made mistakes. I received the same call seven times in a day while some days two to three calls. It’s most annoying.

  4. Richard Heckler
    Posted July 1, 2007 at 12:30 pm | Permalink

    2008 Election Platform “Let the Voter/Taxpayer Decide”Public Funding would eliminate all special interest groups. What more could anyone ask?http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/27/1428224

    With public funding the following could be accomplished:

    *Universal HealthCare – would provide boost to economic growth

    *Outsourcing seriously reduced – would provide boost to economic growth by returning wealth generation to the USA

    *Alternative Energy – would provide boost to economic growth,less dependence on outside sources plus create millions of new jobs thus wealth generation for the USA.

    *Pull the troops from the mideast as natives do NOT want our military presencewhich is the cause of this BUSHCO war due to oil supplies.

    * Fuel efficient motor vehicles would be the order of the day simply because it would be smart.

    * Eliminate special interest funding of political campaigns which would reduce our cost of living thus creating wealth for more taxpayers.

    * All parks nationwide become herbicide/pesticide free

    I have just presented what should be the primary objectives of the 2008 elections and and i further contend all of the above including Fair Vote http://www.fairvote.org/irv/ and Public Fundinghttp://www.publicampaign.org/ of elections should be placed on the 2008 ballot.