This is a class blog for the students of POLSCI 426: Congressional Politics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Wisconsin Might Just Hang Up on "Robo-Calls"

"Hi this is Representative_______" or "Hi this is Senator_______". As a consistent primary voter, I get inundated with these awful things. Finally, we might get a break thanks to State Rep. Spencer Black. However, it does potentially face a first amendment challenge, in that it is free speech. All I know is that on the weekend before an election, I need to leave my house or turn off my phone.
Anyway, I'm stuck at home today waiting for the tow-truck to come get my car in somewhere as I think it might have actually kicked the bucket this time. Maybe I'll even get around to deleting the robo-calls left on my answering machine from last week.

1 comment:

"JPO" Joseph Ohler said...

Given that 64% of voters nationwide received one or more automated congressional candidate campaign calls in November 2006, it stands that those calls tangibly increased constituent awareness of not only the candidates but also of the electoral contest itself. A virtually surefire way to protect those automated campaign messages from being outlawed is to omit solicitations of funds and to cap the frequency at which the automated dialers call the same number within each month. This would ensure that if the Supreme Court justices examine the issue, the median opinion will be well within permissiveness of the aforementioned automated campaign messages containing only “vote-for-candidate on date-of-election” statements.

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