Democrats sponsoring an anti-robocall bill collectively made more than 1.4 million such calls in 2006.In a case best described as Congress: Heal Thyself, a group of Democrat lawmakers whose campaigns collectively made more than 1.4 million automated telephone calls in 2006 have proposed legislation to ban the practice.
According to campaign filings with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), campaigns for U.S. Representative’s Lois Capps, Nick Lampson, Jim Marshall, Paul Hodes and Steve Kagen paid $112,119 to telemarketers for automated phone messages leading up to their 2006 elections. Those members are now sponsoring H.R. 372, legislation that would “prohibit politically-oriented recorded message telephone calls” to households listed on the national “Do Not Call” registry.
At a higher-end estimate of eight cents per call, those same members last year interrupted dinner in 1,401,489 households.
The biggest offender of the group was freshman Kagen of Wisconsin, whose FEC filings report he paid two firms - the Campaign Network in Boston, MA, and the Next Best Thing in Leesburg, VA - nearly $70,000 for campaign phone calls, or more than 865,400 so-called “robocalls.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spent an additional $13,000 for robocalls on Kagen’s behalf, or about 165,000 calls, putting Kagen over the one-million-call mark.
Kagen even has an in-house robocall expert on his Congressional staff.
In 2005, Kagen’s Communications Director, Curtis Ellis, was a budding Democrat operative in upstate New York. A complaint filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) implicated Ellis in a “deceptive and fraudulent” robocall scheme, where Ellis was alleged to have impersonated the voice of an unpopular politician in a recorded telephone message.
According to the Buffalo News, Ellis “acknowledged the calls,” but “declined to comment when asked if his voice was heard on the tape.” No charges were ever filed. Ellis’s candidate was soundly defeated, with many crediting the controversy, in part, for that loss.
Managing Editor Michael Brady contributed to this story.
Automated Phone Calls suck!!
Whomever it was that originally dreamed up the idea of automated phone calls by candidates and/or parties to prospective voters, he/she should be run out of town on a rail! I will not "hold" to speak to Senator or Congressman Snotnose or President Bush, Clinton or whateverhisname is. No thank you. Campaign operatives must think we voters are pretty dumb...talk about patronizing!! Give me a break!