From the New York TImes:

States Seek Limits on ‘Robocalls’ in Campaigns

By SUSAN SAULNY

Published: April 25, 2007

LINCOLN, Neb. — State investigators here are still trying to figure out who sabotaged Scott Kleeb’s campaign for Congress last November with a barrage of automated telephone calls to voters. The unauthorized calls, officials said, distorted Mr. Kleeb’s views and even used a recording of his voice — sometimes arriving in the middle of the night — with the greeting: “Hi, this is Scott Kleeb!”

Several Nebraska state lawmakers were so outraged by the shenanigans that they are pushing legislation that would impose some of the country’s most restrictive regulations on prerecorded campaign calls, both bogus and legitimate ones. Similar bills are in the works in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin and at least a dozen other states, prompted in large part by telephone calls authorized by campaigns during last year’s elections.

“Get rid of them,” said Stan Jordan, a Republican state representative in Jacksonville, Fla., who has sponsored a bill there. “When they first started, this wasn’t much of a nuisance. But it’s epidemic-level now.”

Nearly two-thirds of registered voters nationwide received the recorded telephone messages, which as political calls are exempt from federal do-not-call rules, leading up to the November elections, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an independent research group. The calls, often known as robocalls, were the second most popular form of political communication, trailing only direct mail, the group said.

Some residents in Mr. Jordan’s district received 17 calls a day, he said. In the Third Congressional District of Nebraska, voters reported getting as many as 20 calls daily — many of them purportedly from Mr. Kleeb’s campaign — at all hours of the day and night.

“They’re a real gimmick,” said State Senator DiAnna Schimek, a Democrat who represents Lincoln and who wrote the Nebraska legislation.

The automated phone calls, have been popular with candidates for years because they are cheap, easy to make and often highly effective. The Federal Communications Commission has rules requiring the callers to state their identity at the beginning of the message. A spokesman, Clyde Ensslin, said the commission had taken action against violators, but it did not separate political calls from commercial ones.

State officials say the federal rules have been routinely ignored, and with the pitched battle for control of Congress in last year’s elections, complaints about the calls surged, particularly in many battleground states.

In Missouri, voters endured a blitz of automated calling during the tight Senate race between Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, and Claire McCaskill, the Democrat who unseated him. The Missouri attorney general’s office received 664 complaints about the calls, more than any other issue in the past several years, officials said.

“The public really doesn’t like these things anymore, especially with the increasing frequency and negativity,” said the Missouri attorney general, Jay Nixon. “It’s a growing industry and one that Missouri citizens have already grown weary of.”

Mr. Nixon added, “I can’t speak for the rest of the country, but here in Missouri, they are the tool du jour of negative politics, and we’ve come together to say, ‘Let’s not do this anymore.’ ”

So far, only a few states, including Indiana, Minnesota and New Jersey, have laws restricting the calls, but more than 20 states have bills now pending. A tally compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures shows the proposals vary widely.

The Nebraska legislation would limit to two the number of automated political calls any household could receive in one day, restrict calling to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., mandate disclosure at the outset of who was responsible for the call and indicate whether a candidate had approved the message.

In Missouri and Rhode Island, lawmakers want to establish a political no-call list. In Florida, the existing commercial no-call list would be extended to include the political calls. A bill in Michigan would prohibit early morning and late-night calls.

“I just absolutely thought these phone calls were an abhorrent campaign practice, and we’re cracking down on them now,” said Michael Sak, a Democratic state representative from Grand Rapids, Mich., who has sponsored the bill there.

The proposed penalties mostly involve fines. In Michigan, a person found guilty of making a prohibited call could be charged with a misdemeanor, and could face up to 90 days in jail, as well as fines.

The wave of potential regulation is not without critics. Some say the calls, which are relatively inexpensive compared with other forms of campaign advertising, help level a playing field that is tilted in favor of better-financed candidates.

“The robocalls give the outsider the opportunity to impact thinking in a way they wouldn’t be able to otherwise,” said Bruce I. Newman, a professor at DePaul University and the author of several books on marketing and politics. “All of this is good if it instills a greater level of participation in the voters and more interaction between government and the governed.”

Professor Newman said the calls were effective “to a point.”

“You do reach a point of diminishing returns when it becomes annoying,” he said.

And political speech — even in a prerecorded message delivered electronically — is protected under the First Amendment, raising a host of legal issues.

Courts have already upheld some state laws restricting the use of automated campaign calling. In Indiana and Minnesota, for instance, laws have withstood challenges and are cited as models for the new wave of legislation around the country.

Last year, a call center based in Virginia challenged the Indiana law, which was enacted in 1988 and requires consent from the person being called. (Consent can be obtained via a live operator introducing the prerecorded message or another means worked out in advance.)

The company, FreeEats.com, had sought a stay and an injunction.

In his order denying both, a federal district judge, Larry J. McKinney, wrote, “The government interest served by the statute is the protection and preservation of residential privacy.”

Robert E. Kaiser, president of telemarketingconsultant.com, which makes automated political calls, said he was concerned for people who might actually want to get the messages.

“You might not think there would be a segment of the public that would want the calls, but there probably is,” Mr. Kaiser said.

In Lincoln, a vote on the legislation in the state’s unicameral Legislature is expected by the end of April. There has been little opposition raised in debates about the legislation. Gov. Dave Heineman has not taken a position publicly on the bill.

Christy Abraham, legal counsel for the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee in the Legislature, said it would give constituents what they had asked for.

“People said they didn’t want calls in the middle of the night,” Ms. Abraham said. “They said we don’t want 17 calls in a row. And they said we want to know who’s calling.”

“The courts seem to be upholding these as far as permissible restrictions,” she said. “We’re going to try it and see what happens.”