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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Ind. Decisions - Still more on: State loses auto-dialer case in trial court

Updating this ILB entry from May 9th, Tracy Warner of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has this item today:

State Democratic and Republican leaders have found an issue on which they agree – state law should not prohibit computerized calls from political campaigns.

Attorney General Steve Carter has been the leading champion of the Do Not Call law, designed to heavily restrict unsolicited telephone calls to homes from businesses. Under Carter, the state sued American Family Voices Inc. under a separate 1988 law that bans using the automatic dialing technology, dubbed “robocalls.” The law had been widely ignored until Carter decided to step up enforcement.

The state accused American Family Voices of violating the law in the 2006 election following complaints about calls critical of then-Hoosier Congressman Mike Sodrel, a Republican.

The court dismissed the state’s lawsuit, ruling that the state law can limit only commercial calls. The state has appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court.

Now, the state Democratic and Republican parties have asked the court to file a joint friend-of-the-court brief, allowing the parties to weigh in on the legality of the calls. Both parties believe political robocalls are legal.

One more matter the two parties agreed upon – both hired James Bopp Jr., a Terre Haute attorney who is an authority on campaign-related free-speech issues. Bopp is also the attorney for Indiana Right to Life’s challenge against rules restricting what Indiana judicial candidates can say regarding their political campaigns, and, for a time, represented Matt Kelty in his battles with campaign finance law.

“The First Amendment and the Indiana Constitution protect all political speech, including computer-generated political calls. The Indiana Supreme Court should interpret the statute to only apply to commercial calls,” Bopp said, “leaving intact the robust political arena that the First Amendment was designed to protect.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 13, 2008 11:44 AM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions